Inconsitent enforcement of rules by CWL employees

[undone lynx]

See here: #🖼️│bitcraft-screenshots message And chat before it.

The post outlined by Minch is fairly direct in what it calls out as being griefing and not.

The actions of individual moderators, chosing to ignore this direction and make their own judgements, have led to many criticisms being levied against CWL on steam and other review places.

CWL needs to get on same page and spell out what kind of gameplay they want to allow in their game instead of just winging it on every interaction. There is no consistency and moderations is being weapoinzed by the playerbase, who are taking advantage of this fact.

[frail comet]

I recommend outlining exactly what you were doing at the claim and what you were terraforming, because I believe people will imagine one thing and in reality you did another thing.

[vernal summit]

I don't envy moderators responding to tickets and trying to determine intent.

[frail comet]

It will also help us understand a bigger picture.

[lone marsh]

"Moderations being weaponized" is the most ignorant statement I have ever heard in my lifetime; moderation is there to act as a factor when things are out of the players hands; it is also there to change things as needed changed when systems, guidelines, rules, are skirted on and taken "advantage of" based off vague wording.

Moderation is there for direct action, clarification, and correction.

[kindred girder]

I think there should be no moderation in the game actions. Only thing you can and can't do

[frail comet]

Further quotes from Voxel:

Terraforming to block off easy trade routes of empires, removing roads, making it more difficult (but not impossible) to get to a watchtower are still things not considered griefing. Where there are issues with those, we try to develop systems to leave things to the players

That being said, if there is terraforming done with express intent of just being obnoxious or harmful to a settlement, that usually turns into a case of player harassment

[honest needle]

In an ideal world, that would be the case, but allowing as much player freedom as possible is at odds with that in some instances.

[undone lynx]

True. An individual who owns the "Naughtingham" claim, Naughty, has been repeatedly pestering and attacking the Ottoadman team for a few weeks now. Effectively attempting to blackmail them into giving up a watch tower or they would endlessly 'grief us for months'. This has now come to pass and a war was declared by Naughty on the Ottoadman empire.

They have claimed that they will keep this up for months and will be as annoying about it as possible.

On my own, I decided to directly interfere with their operations by terraforming the area outside their base.

I have left a few entrances as to not block it off completely

[lament dawn]

Okay....so...heres the thing. At the Empire scale we currently believe that anything goes (between empires) <--- CURRENTLY. As in AT THE MOMENT. As in, UNLESS THERE IS ISSUE that is their stance. Guess what. Pk has become an issue.

[undone lynx]

But otherwise am trying to as annoying as possible

[marble adder]

We like to use that area for hunting and are not at all involved in the war, we are a landless empire that does not want land. The walls are interferring with our ability to hunt int he area and we asked pk to stop. He threatened to attack our claim instead

We left because we don't want to be griefed

[kindred girder]

a game like eve online had a lot of gameplay freedom and no gameplay moderation (still have probably, havent played for a while)

[undone lynx]

It is not griefing.

You are misuing the word in attempt to make your argument sound more legitimate.

[lament dawn]

Also THREATENING smaller players who use those areas asking you to stop is not okay. For that reason I will take a hard stance on the actual paving/terraforming/walling of this, and I will actively come over and undo it.

[undone lynx]

There are direct in-game things you can do if you want (and accept the consequences of)

[marble adder]

We're technically an empire but we are not trying to be part of a war, attacking a small claim is considered griefing. But since we're technically an empire is it fair game even if we aren't attempting to do war?

[undone lynx]

This is a sandbox MMO

[lone marsh]

Griefing by definition, regardless of the community guidelines interpretation of it; by nature, is the disruption and interruption of another individual's gameplay experience.

[undone lynx]

And as long as there is an in-game remedy, it has been defined as not griefing.

If I were to place claims to block them in

that would be griefing

[lament dawn]

JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN DO A THING DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULD DO A THING

[undone lynx]

This is not what has been done.

Just because you can declare war doesn't mean you should

You get what you ask for

[honest needle]

Yeah. Our goal is to eventually move towards having as much things just managed by the game systems as possible.

That being said, we don't have direct pvp to deal with cases of conflicting interest.

[undone lynx]

And I was very clear in stating that it would only continue as long as they continued the war effort

They doubled down

So I doubled down

It's not very hard to understand

CWL have given us very little ways to interact with this system

Terraforming is one of them

You can easily counter-terraform

[marble adder]

we're not part of the war and you threatened us

[lyric condor]

“Legally” Pkfyre is in the clear (I think)

“Morally” the guy should be shunned lmao

[marble adder]

and towerborne

when we tried to undo it

[undone lynx]

You were counter-terraforming

[honest needle]

Once again, we're not trying to have a discussion too much about individual instances

[marble adder]

yeah, but we're not part of any war

[undone lynx]

did you expect me to be nice to someone working against me?

[honest needle]

It's about general principles

[undone lynx]

I agree

[marble adder]

okay well then in general can they threaten other claims that are not involved in war

[honest needle]

Let's not get too deep into in-game situations

[undone lynx]

I don't really like having to explain the obvious reasons why something was happening

We, rather, need to be specific on what is and is not allowed.

[honest needle]

Thats a tricky one. Threatening isn't necessarily action, and is also a bit messy depending on the specific circumstance

[kindred girder]

I don't think you can say someone is not involved in war. everyone is involved in trading so anyone could influence a war in that way 😛

[marble adder]

if someone attacked a claim that's not in the war would that be griefing

[opaque umbra]

Question

[lone marsh]

I think the issue at the moment Voxel, is those systems are not available for use; and I understand CWL is a small team, trying to manage the STDB, game updates, bug fixes, work situations, etc; and there are individuals, because this is the internet afterall, that will do and use any means necessary to skirt the line, bend guidelines, abuse systems, whenever the chance arises; it's not a one off issue; and so the community is left to depend on you guys to do the moderation in places where they can not.

[opaque umbra]

@honest needle are you wanting this thread to be a general "comments on moderation policy" thread or specifically in instances of terraforming/griefing

becuase if it's the second I will make another thread for my comments

[honest needle]

We do want to add other ways for players to help resolve these instances in the future with new systems. Developing said systems takes a lot of time though, because generally speaking anything that can be used to protect oneself can also be used maliciously if not done right.

[marble adder]

if the claim doesn't have a foundry even then they can't participate

[lone marsh]

The idea of forgiveness because "Oh, we didn't make this clear enough" only invites more excuses further down the line to abuse those systems; hard lines need to be drawn, and punishments for violations need to happen.

[kindred girder]

then can, you can buy capsule on the market

[marble adder]

then that's anyone not just empires

and it's against tos to attack small claims that are not empire by terraforming

[kindred girder]

thats my point, anybody can be involved

[marble adder]

that's against tos though to attack a small claim that's not in an empire

[undone lynx]

More weaponization of moderation

[marble adder]

weaponizing vague guidelines

[undone lynx]

Your actions have consquences, you cannot expect to punch someone in the mouth and revieve nothing in response.

[kindred girder]

yeah but thats a bad policy thats doesnt describe exactly what is what, left for the discretion of a moderator 😛

[honest needle]

To some extent, we won't go too harsh on punishments where we just weren't clear enough. They are learning lessons we can use to help flesh out the rules.

[undone lynx]

Since naughty owns no territory, there is nothing that can be done to them in response.

[marble adder]

we're literally just trying to hunt there

[honest needle]

Did you make a ticket on this instance?

[marble adder]

okay but by doing this you're punishing everyone else who has to deal with what they've done in a case where they're literally attacking people by terraforming to disrupt

[undone lynx]

Why would I make a ticket because someone declared war on a tower.

That makes no sense.

[honest needle]

Fair 'nuff.

[marble adder]

I get not punishing on things that don't harm others like the fishing exp spinning and everything

[undone lynx]

The only actual course of action I have is making it difficult for them to gather supplies

[marble adder]

but this kind of thing directly affects others

[undone lynx]

Which, unsurprisingly, brings the inevitable conclusion of trying to obstruct them from gathering said supplies

[marble adder]

other people want to gather those supplies too!

[lone marsh]

Also, Pk; let's take a look at it this way; you want to defend actions people make with copy pasting the guidelines, and using the wording as an excuse; but how's this, the game is a community sandbox, it is being developed with community in mind, say the moderaters don't get involved and aren't "weaponized" as you keep trying to say

[undone lynx]

Not allowed others to 'obstruct' one another, really just means we can't stop them from doing whatever they want.

[honest needle]

Part of the early access, in a sense, is figuring this stuff out. We can figure out what lines to draw, and then take action when they are crossed in the future.

[undone lynx]

Whoever does their action first has casus beli and can do whatever they want.

[marble adder]

I will disassemble my empire if I have to but I want to know what the guidelines mean before I do that

[undone lynx]

Because if you interfere with them, you are griefing them, or whateve.r

[lone marsh]

If a majority of the playerbase, says what someone is doing is griefing, or disagrees with the actions, and can't do anything about it, if there's no moderation

[kindred girder]

thats part of the problem right, what says terraforming this part of the map only influence this group of people ? I can influence many persons

[marble adder]

we're landless we just wanted the name, if that mean that they can attack us I'll undo it

[undone lynx]

You are not the majority of the playerbase

Believe it or not

[lone marsh]

How long do you think the game will keep humane players?

[honest needle]

A policy of harsh, retroactive punishment only leads to an environment of people constantly being worried about what they can and can't do. In a sense, not super fair.

[opaque umbra]

I don't think Voxel is saying they're "allowed" to attack you

[marble adder]

We're already worried about what we can do, because they'll come over and terraform our area instead

[lone marsh]

Okay, no, I'm not a majority of the playerbase; but I see multiple people taking issue with the current state of things.

[opaque umbra]

but it's a grey area because the terraforming is between two separate groups, and a third group is being affected

[marble adder]

I know but they're not saying they can't either :(

[undone lynx]

If you want to interfere with other players, don't be surprised if they interfere with you back

[opaque umbra]

but saying "You can't do this because it might affect a third, fourth, fifth, whatever group" is the same as effectively saying "you can't do this"

[honest needle]

That's why moderation stepped in, as it was an instance of expressed intent of being disruptive to a settlement.

[undone lynx]

That settlement is the capital of the empire that declared war and predominately occupied by naughty and his alts.

You have to understand that there is little reason to seperate the two

[kindred girder]

I feel like in the end terraforming will be removed lol

[opaque umbra]

For reference Voxel, I believe Katsy's settlement is not one involved in the actual dispute. They were upset at the terraforming going between the parties in dispute and when they asked to stop they were threatened, is I believe the situation

[honest needle]

Ah, I see.

[undone lynx]

They began counter-terraforming

[marble adder]

Yes, trying to generalized because they asked to not bring specific things in. We are not part of the war

We just want to hunt there and the terraforming is making it bad

we tried to remove it

and were threatened

[undone lynx]

You bring yourself into it when you interfere

[hoary rapids]

If I put a chest in that spot and hunted all the animals at spawn for my own gain, would you consider that griefing as well? I would be stopping you from hunting there in that case too

[marble adder]

we live all the way south far far away

[lone marsh]

Because you're petty squabble Pk, is in THEIR way, to play the game, you are disrupting THEIR experience when they have NOTHING to do with your quarrel

[undone lynx]

You are not entitled to everything in the world just because you want it

[honest needle]

I definitely think there are things you can do in retaliation, but figuring out where to draw the line for retaliation is one thing I am hoping we can narrow down with this discussion ^-^

[marble adder]

Pk no one is saying that you're overstating on purpose

[undone lynx]

I realize you have a vested interest in your hunting spot being usable

[kindred girder]

1. remove terraforming 2. remove paving

[undone lynx]

But that doesn't change anything really

[lone marsh]

If the intent is there, and a settlement is purposefully placed with that as an intention, then absolutely.

[marble adder]

So if an unrelated claim, not warring, went to undo the terraforming between two warring empires, is it okay for either side to attack the unrelated claim for that. That is the only question I really have for that

[lone marsh]

Chest itself is whatever

[honest needle]

For the sake of a healthy discussion, let's avoid putting any words in others mouths and help keep things focused on finding a productive solution :>

[undone lynx]

They are literally just complaining about their hunting grounds man

[lament dawn]

@honest needle To clarify; Naughty started a war with Toadman, Pkfyre took it upon himself to retaliate by terraforming, paving, walling. Rattopia uses that area for hunting so when they came over to hunt and saw the mess making it harder to play the game (while NOT being involved in the in-game nonsense) decided to clean it because its a space they use. Pkfyre got petty about people coming to undo a WORLD AFFECTING ISSUE and threatened Rattopia and Towerborn he'd do the same to them.
The claim of "You can undo it" is not okay, becuase that is valuable game time people now have to spend cleanig up a mess because someone got big mad at them for literally making a mess of PUBICALLY USED areas.

[undone lynx]

That's the nature of a sandbox mate

If there was PvP I would have just killed them on the spot. But alas I must only terraform.

[kindred girder]

make terraforming much hard to do than it is to undo

[lament dawn]

^ See?

[honest needle]

In a sense, yes, nature of a sandbox. If you have more people it should be easy to undo, especially since undoing terraforming is less work.

[undone lynx]

Well there were 5 of them

[marble adder]

3 of us

[lament dawn]

"Its the game" is not a valid excuse in a game that is not meant to be pvp focused

[long zephyr]

and i think to point out that the retaliation happened because there is currently no way to do so against Naughty who is a single-claim no territory empire

[undone lynx]

And they spent most of their time just deconstruction the terraform station

(which there is no ability to stop)

[marble adder]

and we left

because we were threatened

[undone lynx]

There was your group

[lament dawn]

Well some places do not have more people. There are claims that have like 4 people, what are they to do if a big group comes in to mess with them?

[undone lynx]

And there was the settlement group

[lone marsh]

Because here's the thing Pk; yes, it's an open world, yes, there are a pleothera of areas people can go, but guess what, there is actual limited biome specific spawns in each Individual Region, people want convienence naturally, and unless it's absolutely needed, I don't see why anyone would want to have to travel to an entirely different region, to obtain something they need, whether it be for experience, or progress, or whatever.

[marble adder]

Yeah and like I said I'm not with the settlement group

[lone marsh]

So sure, it might not look as a big of a deal to "disrupt an entire area and inconvienence more players than intended"

[honest needle]

I mean, if the watchtowers are being sieged, you have capsules to defend it, and can modify the terrain to build a wall or the likes to make it harder for the enemy to bring capsules over

[opaque umbra]

I believe this specifically is why Voxel wanted to avoid arguing over specific instances

[lament dawn]

The issue of the matter here is; It begs to question the affects long term. Let this slide here....and it will cause bigger and more issues down the line.

[undone lynx]

It's not even a 50x50 grid of space on the map

you are way overblowing the situation

There are plenty of other places to go in the world

9 regions in-fact

[marble adder]

but what if it's not a watchtower, what if they have no watchtowers and are not part of any war

and are in fact on an island

where paving would stop resources from spawning

[fair falcon]

There shouldn't be threats at all this is a chill game ment to be fun but if you grief you need to be banned because that's not right

[lament dawn]

Pkfyre is terraforming around a whole claim, NOT a tower. This is beyond just "Empire drama" now

[undone lynx]

You are an aurora member

[marble adder]

I'm literally my own empire

[undone lynx]

Zippy is an aurora member

I am not talking to you most of the time friend

[honest needle]

I'm aware of the particular instance. I do want to keep things generalized for the sake of discussion

[undone lynx]

I understand your hunting grounds are nice

But again, like Voxel said, general discussion

[marble adder]

I'm not your friend you threatened me :/

[lament dawn]

I understand that, but that is what the discussion here is about, is the fact that people are messing with claims and not towers

[undone lynx]

you deserved to be threatend (and it made you leave, so it worked)

[honest needle]

I'd be careful with wording like that 😓

[tropic void]

lol

[marble adder]

I was trying to be general sorry but it's a very specific instance

[tropic void]

Sums up who's in the wrong pretty easily

[frail comet]

The devs implemented a system to actually skip this whole process btw, walling towers is pointless.

[honest needle]

Quick break: there's a lot of heated feelings causing more in-game drama and accusations to be thrown around

I understand we may have grievances with eachother, but end of the day we are trying to figure out how to police in game actions better

So let's put aside differences for a moment so we can work towards a good spot ^-^

Unlocked~

[kindred girder]

nobody but cwl can work toward a good spot you just need to decide on what to do, tbh

[honest needle]

But our community is just as much a part of the game as we are

[undone lynx]

The underlying issue is that there needs to be a way to disrupt other empires who declare war on you.

[lament dawn]

Voxel. Im sorry, but unless players like Pkfyre are punshied with bans, mutes, suspensions? This will continue to happen

[honest needle]

I think the community should be involved :>

[undone lynx]

More mod weaponization.

[lament dawn]

See?

[honest needle]

Action was taken, that's why this conversation started.

[undone lynx]

Tamo is in-game counter-terraforming as we speak.

[lament dawn]

Yes. I am.

[honest needle]

That aside, determining what is necessary of action is the point here.

[undone lynx]

"Plz ban this player who is doing what I don't like"

[lone marsh]

Well, the community opinion route apparently leads to "weaponization" if people have an opinion on how/what policing should take place.

[marble adder]

Okay I get that you want to be able stop a war but there are other ways and theatening uninvolved parties seems like crossing a line

[kindred girder]

we can only give opinion in the end we can't do anything else, so you need to enforce something or change gameplay possibilities. Just talking will make a lot more people frustrated

[undone lynx]

Again this is the issue.

[honest needle]

And maybe that's not a bad thing. They need some sort of conflict resolution we are clearly lacking.

[lone marsh]

Well, I know about 25% of the playerbase is all for open pvp for it

[marble adder]

That's the issue you have, the issue I have is that we can't hunt where we want and we're threatened when we try to fix it

[lone marsh]

50% of it seems to be for the argumentative route

[undone lynx]

The issue you have is completely irrelevant to this discussion

quit bringing it up

[lone marsh]

And the other 25% just want direct clarification and action from the moderation team.

[honest needle]

Which is a result of the issue Pk has

[marble adder]

It's relevant, we want clear distinction on tos so we know if we can safely play the game

or if we'll be retaliated against within tos

[lament dawn]

Causing a mess in the world terrain, where people gather and hunt should be stopped. Im sorry but beyond this one occurance it will just cause bigger messes, more drama, and people like Rattopia who had nothing to do with the initial mess being pulled into just cause they wanted their normal hunting area to be clean.

[undone lynx]

Go somewhere else and hunt

God bless I don't get why you are stuck on this

[tropic void]

Be sure to snap a screenshot next time, threatening someone*is absolutely crossing line

[lone marsh]

And if you want to keep quoting the guidelines Pk; you already broke 2 of them and got away with it with your last statement

[undone lynx]

I want discussion on how to make the game better

[hoary rapids]

The point of this thread should be to illuminate the flaws of the guidelines and try to have less ambiguity in the enforcement. And the arguments about how RL morals are translating to a gameworld are not and can not be 1:1.

[lone marsh]

So clearly the rules only apply when it's convienent.

[marble adder]

Oh really? I have some

[lament dawn]

If every claim, empire, group were to use that as an excuse we would have no places to hunt

This pulls into questions a broader issue not your petty squable with Naughty

[undone lynx]

If I enclose an area and make it my exclusive hunting ground

You can do nothing about it

[tropic void]

Like i don't say that with authority or knowledge but that sounds like common sense right?

[undone lynx]

quit making random arguments

[marble adder]

I would think but it's hard to tell with current tos, that's why we're involved in this discussion too :3

[tropic void]

ah fair

[lament dawn]

Ive said my peace about this. I will be walking out of this convo but will continue to advocate for anti-griefing.

[cosmic snow]

isnt this whole conversation about unclear rules about grieving and thus inconsistent upholding the rules?
Side goal of this conversation was about disrupting empires who have war with eachother?

[tropic void]

Sorry i jumped in half way, bad actors are just too tempting

[undone lynx]

Saying that, if you continue to counter-terraform my efforts that I will instead go terraform to inconvience you instead, is not breaking any ToS.

Chibi wolf is also aurora

So again, take with a grain of salt.

[marble adder]

We're not over there and haven't been for hour pk

[lone marsh]

Okay; well, if this conversation is about inconsistent or unclear ToS/Guidelines and moderation

[undone lynx]

Neither have I

[lone marsh]

"No threats, abusive language"

There have been threats

[marble adder]

That sounded like a threat to me

[lone marsh]

Abusive language

[undone lynx]

I was directly stopped by Voxel from being able to place a terraform station for 18 hours

[tropic void]

I'm a what now

[lone marsh]

And a lack of respect

[undone lynx]

It is a threat.

[lone marsh]

So, that being said

[undone lynx]

You can threaten to retaliate against players

[lone marsh]

That is a clear stated guideline/rule; what is the action against it Voxel?

[undone lynx]

If you undercut my rope I will clear out all your fibers

[hoary rapids]

Is that threat of ingame action/consequence or RL threats, because that can not be the same thing..

[cosmic snow]

its inconsistent upholdign rules.. if player 1 does get a "ban" from something and player 2 and 3 dont get bans .. thats inconsistent.. think thats the entire point of this conversation

[marble adder]

Well we reported you for threatening us I hope you have repercussions and I hope the tos is updated to make it clear

[undone lynx]

You are just making a massive logical leap

And completely derailing this thread

[honest needle]

It's mostly threats about non in-game actions. Threats of harm, messing with someone's account, etc.

[marble adder]

I'm out, I did what I could and submitted a ticket, I don't think this is going anywhere

[cosmic snow]

@lone marsh @marble adder how about stop poking @undone lynx in hopes he reacts and admins/mods will "punish him" whats that gonna help te game ?

[hoary rapids]

Exactly, thank you.

[marble adder]

we weren't we literally just want clarification

[lone marsh]

I'm not poking anything; if you read my statements I have made throughout this entire conversation

[undone lynx]

Because they don't actually want to improve the game or talk about ways to make it better, they just want to weaponize the mods against me.

[marble adder]

so we know if it's allowed

[cosmic snow]

just revert back to orginal point of this point

[undone lynx]

Kitumo has been antagonistic towards me for weeks

What do you expect.

[lone marsh]

99% of it has mostly been outlining instances of inconsitities in the guidelines, skirtable instances of vague wording, etc.

For weeks?

[undone lynx]

Anyway, can we get back to the main topic for once?

[lone marsh]

News flash dude, I haven't played in 3 months; I have been keeping an eye on updates, waiting for moderation systems, reading through the suggestions threads to see what gets traction/attention and what doesn't, to see where the game has been headed, because god, I think it's a great concept, wonderful idea

[undone lynx]

Godbless

[lone marsh]

But the current standing of moderation/lack there of, unclear guidelines and hard lines

[tropic void]

sounds like your equally antagonistic to them, so is that like a justification or what

[lone marsh]

Is what has been keeping me distant.

[honest needle]

To have things moving forward, how about this. Just leave a message asking for which ruling (general terms) you would like clarification on. I can gather these up, and talk with other members of the team so we can help create more clarification on them.

Discussion amongst eachother in a topic like this seems to keep leading back towards arguments about in-game actions :<

[undone lynx]

It isn't just a single ruling we need.

[honest needle]

Right

[undone lynx]

We need clear rules of engagement for empire warfare

[honest needle]

Which is why it's a list ^ ^

[vernal summit]

I think it might help if the game had something like a U key to show the creator of in game objects or changes. The other day I was traveling the Tortuga-DOOM highway and blocked by a grove of trees put there by someone simply for the purpose of annoying others (seems like the middle of a road is not the best place to practice forestry). Having some in-game accountability might help to alleviate the burden of moderators.

[undone lynx]

What is planned for future and what we are allowed to do now.

[cosmic snow]

There was a point to this discussion post..

"isnt this whole conversation about unclear rules about grieving and thus inconsistent upholding the rules?
Side goal of this conversation was about disrupting empires who have war with eachother?"

"its inconsistent upholdign rules.. if player 1 does get a "ban" from something and player 2 and 3 dont get bans .. thats inconsistent.. think thats the entire point of this conversation"

having us name all the rules wont actually help @honest needle .. its in general ^^^^^^

[undone lynx]

We need a stopgap list of things we are allowed to do

There are empires that have no territory (or just literally anyone making one themselves) that established empires have no recourse against.

[marble adder]

What is considered griefing, if the intent is to make an area barren in retaliation is that griefing. Are all claims fair game to attack like this or is it just empires? Can empires that are landless be treated the same as large landed empires and be walled off? If an unrelated group wanted to undo work in the area to fix land that is paved over and walled in retaliation is that allowed in tos? Can you wall off whole claims or are you only allowed to terraform around towers to stop war efforts?

[cosmic snow]

and/or accept that ppl will find all the grey area's and you guys gotta catch everything after it happend

[undone lynx]

The rules are literally the rules.

The rules of engagement.

What is and is not allowed

[lone marsh]

Honestly, as of right now, there are less "rules" than there are "suggestions" in the form of guidelines

[honest needle]

Good point Frog

[undone lynx]

If gameplay system are not available yet to deal with a problem that exists, what stopgap solutions are available for players in the meantime.

Outline exactly how we are permited to engage with each other

[lone marsh]

So that's the first issue; actually instill genuine -rules-

[undone lynx]

And make it easy to find, not just in discord, but in-game as well

[lone marsh]

Besides just the RL laws; impersonation, staff or others, impersonation or referencing of irl organizations

[honest needle]

Will take note of this and pass it along to the team. You're completely right that it's something lacking in-game.

[tropic void]

Fair point, definitely got stuck in the weeds with that one
The ok's and not ok's of teraforming

[cosmic snow]

and realise whenn empires at war with eachother... they will find all the loopholes

[undone lynx]

Yes, if you need feedback feel free to post the rules and we will tell you all of the "loop holes"

[cosmic snow]

however.. if the rules of engagement clear.. then player 1 and 2 should also get same treatment.. now its on the admin how to enforce the "rules/punishment'

[undone lynx]

Ideally the rules are clear enough that there is little to no room for on-the-spot interpretations.

[lone marsh]

Well, I've said my piece; made my suggestions and provided my personal feedback to the current moderation/guideline/rule system within the discussion of this thread, so I'm taking my leave. I will continue to keep an eye on things for future updates, I would really love to see the game flourish, honestly the concept and everything is outstanding; but too much freedom, especially in a sandbox environment, with no hard line setting, no enforcement; works fine in single player and lobby based games

Does not work in MMO's, toodles.

[undone lynx]

We aren't going back and using the constitution to establish precendent and case law.

[frail comet]

It's funny bc EVE Online does really well and there are basically no rules in that game. In fact it's basically everything you describe.

Most of it through gameplay systems. Different mindset of players, though.

[undone lynx]

Well you can actually blow up other peoples ships in that game

[frail comet]

Yeah so it does come back to gameplay systems for sure.

[undone lynx]

Since player v player is not on the table, there is no risk/penalty for declaring war.

[frail comet]

We'll need to figure them out and have hard-line DOs and DO NOTs until then. Regardless of anyone's opinion on behavior, I don't even agree or do it myself, nobody today set out to break any rules.

[undone lynx]

The attackers need to risk something as well

Or, better yet, just make it so that if your empire is in-conflict with another that they are toggled on for PvP (with that other empire).

That would solve a lot of issues by itself.

[tropic void]

Probably best not to hold out hope for pvp for conflict resolution, game skews more co-oprative than competetive

[mortal mason]

if EVE is gonna be the gold standard to pursue for CWL I'm yeeting this title from my library for sure there are more toxic communities to engage with but not a lot of them

[frail comet]

Hahaha fair

I was just pointing an example of "It doesn't work!" Well, it does, if the gameplay systems support it.

[mortal mason]

honestly I think this game would be more in line of the vision they present on the store page (cozy wholesome grindy crafty MMO with frenge) if they yote the entire empire system since I've invariably seen it cause only negativity

I specifically hope they never implement PVP

just monetize cosmetics or smol QoL features or something, anything but this dumbass crayons on a map drama engine

[vernal summit]

I think the empire map system should work transparently so that settlements can be aligned and their tier+population+xp+economic impact contributes to an area of influence.

^^ and add hexcap reserves into that mix

[honest needle]

One of the things we've known is that pretty much every other sandbox game is PvP, specifically because it's an efficient way of handling player conflict. We want PvP combat to be a last resort where possible, as one of the things that sets BitCraft apart is not being a PvP combat oriented sandbox game. That does come with a lot of systems that need to be designed as compensation though. X.x

[long zephyr]

ngl I kinda like that idea. i think that would promote faction gameplay where people are more intentional about settlements they work in. Not sure if that's what is good but a fun idea.

[honest needle]

(And there are ways of us introducing PvP that aren't Combat PvP if it comes down to it)

[undone lynx]

As long as we have some way of swatting at players who bring conflict to our doors

Is good with me

[slender birch]

Something to take in consideration here is that conflict between someone who owns a settlement and who does not, is completely unfair, as one has nothing to protect.

[tropic void]

for clarification, unfair to which party?

That may have seamed like a brainless question but, a single player verses a settlement of players also seams unfair right?

[frail comet]

How do you propose a group of players affect an individual player who has no claim?

[lyric condor]

For reference: #bitcraft-chat message

[undone lynx]

#bitcraft-chat message

#🖼️│bitcraft-screenshots message

[tropic void]

We talking terms of in game mechanics or just in general

[frail comet]

I don't really see the difference, but game mechanics.

That's what it all comes back to

[tropic void]

Sorry this is taking a moment, I'm a solo and really don't want to give people ideas but I do have to prove what I'm saying

Right a really can not advocate for this on any level, buuuut you can find out where anyone is at any time. And with multiple people focusing on makeing one person's experience utter hell? Doesn't that sound a weeee bit scary

One example, personal storage can be kicked of a claim right?

.... I probably should have double checked that

[marble adder]

it can

any visible deployable can

[frail comet]

You can, that's a pretty fair answer.

[tropic void]

Like this absolutely doesn't justify solo's doing whatever

Just saying their is ways to fight em, the war is not hopeless

[frail comet]

@honest needle it's hard to bring up this topic without specific examples, but this happened within the last 24 hours. It appears that our roads at an allied settlement were griefed. We don't know who did it but only saw one of Naughty's alts in the area.

These aren't even a part of the war effort, this is just inconveniencing everyone who uses these roads for mining.

We are just going to fix it, but what if it happens again? Is this ticket worthy? We have always been of the opinion that 'fair is fair' because that's what the rules said.

In Katsy's example this is no different to ruining the hunting spot.

[marble adder]

I agree I'd also like distinction on if non warring groups can be attacked

also if you need help undoing it I can help tel

I'm not on either side I'm just against stuff like that in general

[frail comet]

I think it's ok. We'll clean it up and leave it.

[long zephyr]

appreciate the offer @marble adder , thank you

should be ok with fixing it

[marble adder]

no problem, I need that construction exp and I'm online right now let me know if you change your mind

[summer musk]

Wait are you implying I griefed something

Because that is silly

[long zephyr]

oh if you insist 😄

[undone lynx]

Bro in here faster than white on rice

[summer musk]

I've been offline for like 9 hours

[tropic void]

A point I was kind of working towards that relates to the topic at hand is

If people are free to pick these fight, retaliation on mass is also ok right?

[undone lynx]

Well the main point is that I was moderated.

If you want to continue the fight, lets go.

[summer musk]

Yeah because I reported you for harassing me like a month ago and you're at it again now

Get over it

[undone lynx]

Lol

Oh no I keep punching myself, won't someone save me from myself.

[tropic void]

Talking about in game boyos, keep it civil

(well that was civil but, don't escalate it please. With sugar and sprinkles)

[frail comet]

I'm just asking the mod

[honest needle]

Don't bring up player reports and in-game conflict into the discord pls and thx <3

[summer musk]

I can 1000% guarantee that I did not grief a damn thing. Teloril is pulling that out of somewhere

And yeah fair

[honest needle]

I'll be taking examples like this when I talk with the team later about setting better policies

[undone lynx]

Oh wow, look player remediation at work.

[lament dawn]

I agree with this but also, Pkfyre actively instigates it. At this point moderation on toxic behaviour needs to be handled better.

[serene zodiac]

What is this ridiculous bull? Isn't this pretty clear cut?
Take your empire conflicts up with the empire system.
Terraforming is not that, it's a building mechanic not a war mechanic. That's clearly abused to grief others becaus of the whole other empire system that just is a "cosmetic layer of the map and has no influence on actual gameplay". That's clearly violated here.
This shouldn't even be a discussion. Please just get banned if you use terraforming to annoy the heck out of others. Most players don't even participate in the empire system...
This is not a war game you can compare to Eve. Of course moderation should step in if people start abusing mechanics in an unintended way.

[tropic void]

You sounds dissatisfied, isn't this what you wanted?

[undone lynx]

No I'm just pointing out that it's resolving itself in-game

Without the need for moderation intervention

[honest needle]

I'll be coming to the other team members with examples like this to help create a clearer policy ^-^

[undone lynx]

Well that and I literally cannot place a terraform station atm

[tropic void]

The good ending, anyway best of luck with your war everyone. Hope it's fun even if stressful

[undone lynx]

I mean, they are still war declared on the empire

[frail comet]

Terraforming has been used as an example by the moderators as an example for what you CAN do, though.

This thread is an attempt to eliminate that blurriness.

#1415632980671729734 message

[lyric condor]

On one hand I think Kenny brings a valuable point, on the other hand - it might lead to terraforming removal or restrictions.

One way to middle ground it is to - allow it only on claim areas, but that could lead to less interesting interactions within map in general

[summer musk]

10000% this

[undone lynx]

Kenny just coming in hot for no reason tbh

Talking out his ass

[lament dawn]

It has also been stated you ant too though

[honest needle]

Or we introduce new systems for things like road and no-building land protection

[undone lynx]

The whole point of the thread is that it's not clear cut

[honest needle]

A prime example of the inconsistency 😅

[frail comet]

And.... That's the point of the thread. Another example of you can't, examples that you can.

Thank you for helping.

[summer musk]

I have to admit, when I started playing this game, I didn't even consider that griefing would be allowed in any way. Do you think new players are going to want to hop into something like that?

[lament dawn]

Also. The online website TOS says that this kind of behavior doesnt support this chaos either.

[tropic void]

The thread self realised, wild. The development process is fun

[undone lynx]

Naughty is griefing me by declaring war on the empire I'm in.

Please ban him

Thanks

[summer musk]

Can someone put this kid to bed plz

[lament dawn]

Clear cut rules need to be made. A blanket ruling for all. Moderators, Devs, AND partners need to be on the same page of it as well to help keep the community safe and fun.

[frail comet]

Aren't you in Aurora? Ban the ottoadman leader

Wait

[lament dawn]

Naughty just block and mute him everywhere, thats what I did.

[summer musk]

For sure

[uneven jolt]

This thread was a wild read.

[honest needle]

Generally speaking, we want the rules of the game to line up with what our policies are. If we don't want something being done, it's best if the game doesn't allow it in the first place. Otherwise, it creates a situation were moderation team members are needing to step in multiple times each day to resolve potentially muddy situations

[tropic void]

May not be pleasant but it is an interesting issue

[cosmic scarab]

i think one of the biggest things to remember too is. this is still in alpha. you guys are still trying to figure out how you want your rules to be handled and how to enforce said rules. at SOME POINT you will have to enforce a rule or ban someone/mute someone/kick someone. and its going to suck for the first person but after that has been done now that "rule" has a clear of example of what not to do and you get this punishment for breaking that rule

[summer musk]

Then I think the only course of action would be to limit terraforming tbh

[frail comet]

I think it's better to establish the rule and fix gaps, NOT punish players for following an interpretation of rules.

[honest needle]

So its a combination of A: not having systems to prevent certain unwanted behavior, B: not wanting to have moderation done as a replacement for making said systems, C: not retroactively harshly punishing players for unclear ruling.

[summer musk]

One of these days a group of trolls are going to log on with the intention of messing the whole map up

[uneven jolt]

Agreed, the issue is what got me reading. Wild to me how everyone wants a solution yet there’s too much venom from all sides to reach a conclusion.

[frail comet]

If we are going to retroactively punish players we need to re look at sailing etc

[tropic void]

Killing a core feature of the game because some people couldn't stop shitting in the sandbox seams a bit much

[frail comet]

And that's a whole can of worms

[honest needle]

We are actually re-looking at sailing ^ ^

[summer musk]

We either need moderation, or we need limitations

[frail comet]

Ye I meant the incident

[summer musk]

I can't let people destroy the world without consequence. No one is going to go around and clean up trolls messes

[undone lynx]

That was R1 previously

that place is still a wasteland

[cosmic scarab]

and the end of the day. you have to have a team of moderators who enforce rules. IF you have rules then they have to be enforced. if you dont have any rules there is nothing to enforce

[slender birch]

Just give a proper system for handling conflict and disallow using other methods just to cause inconvenience. Otherwise, this will forever be in a gray zone.

[summer musk]

The world will be a hellscape within a year

[lament dawn]

Thats the point I am seeing in all this. Its a repeat of the same issue but different situation. Sailing exp was taken from everyone, while the people who "abused" got no reprocutions. The problem with that is people who abuse systems will just find other methods of abuse if not punished.
Which again swings back to clear cut rules going forward when ANYTHING is added.

[summer musk]

Even with a method of stopping people, trolls will find this game and turn it into a mess

[serene zodiac]

I'd argue about common sense but that's clearly not the world we live in.

Also Bitcraft didn't seem like a toxiv PvP griefing hell hole to me.
If that's what we want to foster here, that's not the game/community I want to be part of.

So yeah, pretty clear cut to me.

[frail comet]

Actually we put together a team to clean up the alchemy tiles in R5. Over 10k tiles cleaned!

[tropic void]

But turning region 9 into a parking lot would be reaaaaly funny

[undone lynx]

The Empire system exists whether you like it or not I'm afraid.

And it is inherently PvP oriented.

[lament dawn]

Im currently at your home helping out hun

[summer musk]

Maybe a system that slowly turns the world back towards its natural state of it's not claimed?

Call it errosion

[honest needle]

Yup, but the issue is that also leads to roads people make just undoing themselves naturally...

[summer musk]

Yeah, but roads do that irl too

Just needs maintenance

[cosmic scarab]

at the end of the day. there will always be people who push the gray zones of rules and see what they can get away with. and thats where moderation has to step in and say is this too close to the gray zone? or is it far enough away to say we cant do anything yet

[honest needle]

Which is why a new system for road protection is also likely in order 😅

[undone lynx]

Did you read the thread? This whole thing is about how the rules are unclear and need to be enforced equally across the board.

[long zephyr]

eh, I get to experience that now xD

[simple berry]

plz

[serene zodiac]

As far as I remember the empire system is not supposed to influence the rest of the game.

[simple berry]

as a road builder

this would be very helpful

[undone lynx]

Well this interaction is between two empires who are at war

[hoary rapids]

Because common sense and real life morals are the same around the globe. We should use that then....

[serene zodiac]

Keep it to the empire system.

[frail comet]

I point back to the example from a CWL team member saying terraforming your towers is OK.

[undone lynx]

Please give your wisdom on how this should be resolved without impacting the game

[cosmic scarab]

congrats you read the thread. but voxel has also said they dont want their team spending time being police. which unfortunally is going to have to happen

[undone lynx]

Well yeah

By making gameplay systems for players to express themselves in

[tropic void]

Any chance of road lamps stoping road decay on top of monsters?

Would incentivise people to make roads look nice too ~

[honest needle]

At least, not negatively in a major way. We understand there will be some natural carry-over, but Empires negatively affecting Settlements is definitely not the intent.

[serene zodiac]

Keep it to the empire system.

[undone lynx]

Like he said before, ideally the ways they don't want you to interact with each other won't be possible to do.

[undone lynx]

So no answer, right.

[summer musk]

I wish the game had plans for moderation tbh. Would make this all a lot easier

[cosmic scarab]

and ideally everyone would follow posted speed limits. but they dont. so then police hand out speeding tickets

[honest needle]

Pavement/road lamps stoping decay would just lead to situations like all the greifing pillars having lamp posts on/near them

[undone lynx]

How about I go make an empire on an alt and just war deck you over and over.

You'll understand then how annoying it is to have no recourse.

[honest needle]

So there would need to be a more concrete "road protection" system, with some vague idea ownership/influence

[cerulean vigil]

No matter what the game systems are, if there is any room for abuse, they will be abused by folks who want to impact others. By establishing clear cut rules and standing by the enforcement, it creates a framework that people can exist within
Using this whole situation as an example, it is using weaponized inconvenience on a large scale to deal with personal conflict, but that method has a pretty big effect on anyone else who exists in the same space and wants to use the same resources. The reaction to anyone wanting to undo the inconvenience so they can play the game being "well either move somewhere else, or accept that we're going to hassle you for trying to play the game in our area" just feels wild in a game that constantly highlights how important the community is.
Ultimately a moderation team for a game like this needs to accept that they are custodians of the sandbox if you want to stop abuse of game mechanics impacting others. At the end of the day, you can be hands off and let players try and work it out amongst themselves, but unfortunately that is going to method come with player attrition. If that is an acceptable cost for a hands off strategy, then that's fine but I think that needs to be considered.

[frail comet]

Whether anyone likes it or not, the Empire and Settlement layers will always be intrinsically linked. Settlements make empires. Empires make large settlements, by attracting players.

To say 'Make it one system only' is ignoring the fact that they are linked one way or another.

[uneven jolt]

Erosion idea actually pretty good, just pair it w system that maintains roads like if someone walks over them regularly enough they dont degrade.

[summer musk]

I like that

[honest needle]

Yup, that would be ideal for roads/terraforming. Even then, its still one part of the larger puzzle, but a step in the right direction. We've been discussing internally about similar ideas, because there is a lot of complications to the specific implementations of such a system

[summer musk]

Honestly as soon as I realized it was more work to grief the base than take it down I stopped caring, but messing with all the animal spawns was a bit much.

[cosmic scarab]

that sounds awesome. however i feel like alot of people are needing/wanting the "what about right now" yea sure eventually you may have these problems handled. but as it stands right now what can/is being done

[marble adder]

tier 2 lamps don't decompose :3

currently*

not sure if intended ^^;

[honest needle]

I'll be taking to other members of the team to get a clearer stance on the direction we want to move in, as that will help inform moderation policies that will better reflect the type of game we are trying to make

[tropic void]

In hindsight, I should have seen that coming

To save a bad idea, what if these lampposts where tied to settlements and had to be attacked by another settlement to disrupt.

Very much a 'this is my road network' and would make sense to attack in a formalized war

[tropic void]

I will use the information irresponsibly, thankyou

[serene zodiac]

Allowing griefing will just lead to more of this:

y'all, I'm afraid I'm fully out. the combination of CWL's milquetoast nonaction response to the latest batch of empire bull* and the latest patch breaking another bunch of really obvious, really core things that would've shown up in cursory testing of the changeset have made me lose complete faith in CWL
I don't even understand why it is considered an option to allow it.

Bitcraft to me really doesn't look like it want's to attract the hardcore griefing enjoying crowd... Pretty sure 99% of the current community doesn't enjoy that style of game.

[tropic void]

Systems designed to be as free as possible, some people just like to use their freedom to suck

[summer musk]

How about not though

[tropic void]

Have you met humans

[summer musk]

That's what the ban hammer is for

[frail comet]

Nobody is asking to be permitted griefing, people are asking for HARD and FAST lines.

What if someone disagrees with this road and dismantles it? One like this: #1415632980671729734 message
Is that griefing? Is it griefing to clean up that road and put the first one back in?

Is it griefing to surround a tower with walls? What about someone elses tower? How many tiles can you terraform away from a tower? 3 tiles? 5 tiles? 10 tiles? Our tower is right next to Naughty's claim, can we terraform around it?

What if someone places a settlement next to a tower and says 'you're griefing us, move the tower?'

All people are asking for is defined rules.

[summer musk]

Hey teloril, one of my alts was mining t5 and the other was farming, so where exactly did you see my alt?

Can you clarify

[frail comet]

I am only using Naughtingham as an example, I have no intent or desire to do all of the above.

not going to derail

[summer musk]

Yeah now that I'm here at least

[undone lynx]

I mean Voxel could easily look at your chat logs and see that you did indeed indicate that you were going to go grief Ottoadman claims in response.

Which, at the time, made sense.

Cuz, ya know, war and all.

[summer musk]

But I never did and saying that my alt was anywhere it wasn't is a bit scummy

[undone lynx]

But then you decided to make a ticket complaining about it and then do it at the same time?

Kinda weird.

[tropic void]

Do we need to get a bell or something

[tropic void]

On that note

Main point people are tying to figure out is what constitutes a ban

[cosmic snow]

like i said 3 hrs before 😉 about unclear what rules are and inconsistent dealing out "punishment" by admins for ppl who break guidelines (since appears rules not set in stone ;))

[tropic void]

We did get rules of engagement at least so that part of the problem is sorted

[serene zodiac]

I do think not punishing too hard retroactively if the rules were not clear is fair.
I just hope they will make 'em clear now so there can be stricter punishment on what shouldn't fly.

[tropic void]

Spot on, Can hope people play by the rule buke as long as we have one and smack em with it if we don't

Personally I'm split on weather paving over half a forest for better hunting is good or bad. Looks ugly but damn is it effective

[uneven jolt]

Agreed. On that note, discussions about grievances had toward BitCraft I have with some of the group I play with is loop balance issues and lack of critical core aspects of game systems that hold the game back.
Feels from certain perspectives y’all are focused on building middle-out rather than say bottom-up.
While it may not matter specifically which method is used it appears CWL is building up additional tech debt and kicking that can down the road while focusing on adding more horizontal content which seems like a peculiar choice. Though admittedly greater plan context isnt known, but it doesnt inspire confidence at the least.

I mention all this as we are starting to see our high value players quit the game simply from being fed up with game systems and lack of tools or moderation such as this thread dances around.

[honest needle]

Yeah, we noticed this as well and have started shifting directions for updates to ensure a path where we can address these issues in a more timely manner.

[serene zodiac]

Maybe we can get those granular chest permissions we're asking for since a1?
-# Feels bad asking for it at this point.

[honest needle]

Don't feel bad! Annoying us about stuff is honestly important and useful for making sure we stay on top of the things people are asking for.

[serene zodiac]

Gentle reminder then that these https://discord.com/channels/558439686083969035/1390088807994491000 https://discord.com/channels/558439686083969035/1388280863099453441 were some of the most upvoted feedback posts of all time

[worn oracle]

Since when did everyone get so soft... So a real life war happens, two towns go at it over some 'pasture' say they both think they own it.... that means you cant get your favorite cheese from one of the towns, therefore the whole world needs to come in and stop it, because you got inconvenienced by their actions. ... seriously. If you cant hunt there because there is a war, so be it, go elsewhere. Sure not ideal but it is part of the game. This whole thing is such a waste of the devs time. Whilst i agree having more black/white rules would help, its open sandbox and one of the few things to do is fight for territory, so if you don't want to be involved and take a stray bullet, then gtfo there and go to the remaining 99.95% of the huge world...

[ruby pasture]

This would have been a totally fair response if we were playing Rust, EVE online, Albion etc... but the people here signed up to play a "MMORPG with a cozy, community first focus" (quote from the Steam page). I don't think it's fair to expect players to have to adjust to their nearby gathering territory being blocked off or terraformed due to a war, especially when it's by no fault of their own.

I think dedicated players can deal with this easily but I can't imagine a casual player logging in to their town only to find out that they can no longer gather resources in their immediate area and must travel to who knows how far away to get their usual materials. That would suck, and it's about the last thing I would expect from what's supposed to be a chill social crafting game

[undone lynx]

I mean I was most interested by the warfare trailer and dedicated skill progression.

[worn oracle]

Yeah i disagree. its not their claim. it is one they use.. use another... life goes on

[undone lynx]

h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyXHGj1GPWA

If you want a uh, reminder.

[brazen trail]

Reading through this thread makes me think that allowing terraforming at all in empire conflicts was a severe misstep. I had my worries about it back when empires were introduced (and voiced them too), and now here we are. If the intent is for empires to not affect settlement gameplay, anything that could constitute as griefing needs to be against the rules. Full stop. I understand that the devs have a particular vision about empires building defenses and sabotaging supply lines, but the truth of the matter is that those activities are always going to have collateral damage on nearby settlements and it leads to situations like these

[worn oracle]

But here is the thing, i have been told, in ticket responses, that denial of cave access or resources such as fencing in hunting spawns is allowed.. so the fact that terraforming in a war inadvertently affected hunting as an example, shouldn't be an issue....seeing as access to the settlement was not completely blocked...

[frail comet]

^ Further reason for this thread to exist.

[brazen trail]

I think completely and purposefully blocking resources like caves should also be against the rules, as it's a form of griefing. I think the rules themselves are too lax and it gives toxic players the freedom to run amok

[worn oracle]

The benefit is denail of resources to help win a battle... its the same thing.. deinal of resources...

[brazen trail]

My impression of CWL's position is that they're trying to avoid having a dedicated moderation team. Which I think is a fundamentally flawed strategy considering they're building an MMO with full map terraforming but no PvP

[snow chasm]

the tragedy of the commons

[worn oracle]

access was not blocked. its not griefing.

[brazen trail]

The denial of resources argument is weak to begin with because capsules are made with hexite (irl money) and supplies (created from a wide variety of products). Ruining your opponents' hunting ground does not prevent the enemy from making capsules because they can make supplies from other things, and in fact leather is much too valuable to turn into supplies. But it does hinder their progression and economy, which the empire system was advertised as being separated from

[worn oracle]

So lets have an open sandbox, but not too open or people will cry.. amazing! its a sad state of affairs when the bully gets rebuked, then cries help.... Hey i want a crown, give me your land, you cant do anything about it... oh i have 20 alts, they want crowns too, ill have all your land they need it...

[sonic finch]

They're not going to cry. They're just going to tell you to stop, and if you don't, remove you. Pretty effective.

[worn oracle]

so u admit they were bully etc... just not crying got it

[sonic finch]

PK was clearly griefing, didn't even try to hide it, and was actioned by mods. The very idea that people would try to defend that behavior is absurd, yes.

[frail comet]

This thread is not about the banning of one person, or a singular incident, but the consistent enforcement of rules. There have been players who have done far worse things than what PK did and it was not actioned despite being ticketed.

This thread calls for consistency, and clearer lines.

[sonic finch]

This thread does a lot of things, teloril. It very clearly, repeatedly, attempts to claim he was not griefing, when he clearly was.

[worn oracle]

that the thing, acording to response previously he wasn't..

[frail comet]

^

I do think those things should have been actioned

But they weren't, and set a prescendent for what was allowed and what wasn't allowed.

See: R1, or the flattening of claims in R5.

Thus, the thread.

I'm just going to add this because I think you don't really have the context. This is a solo claim.

This was responded with "nothing to see here, nothing wrong here"

[marble adder]

flattening meaning paving right?

[frail comet]

This is entirely paved. No spawns.

[marble adder]

yeah :< that's bad

paving is bad it takes a long time to unpave all those tiles

[frail comet]

As someone who has personally gotten together a band of people to remove 10k+ tiles of paving like this

It is absolutely bad

[marble adder]

^

[frail comet]

And I think you don't quite undestand how bad it is, that's pretty clear.

PK's efforts was undone in like, the last 3 hours.

That above paving still exists...

[worn oracle]

tell me you have no idea, without saying you have no idea

[marble adder]

They're both bad >.> and probably should both face some kind of action

[frail comet]

dude... that misdeed is still there

PK's is over

its been sorted

that was a month ago

Neither does reversing terraforming, thats actually the point of the mechanic

Its easier to go to natural

[marble adder]

The terraforming instance has been solved too to my knowledge and they're working on fixing the land, the issue was that it wasn't clear what was allowed especially because of what had been allowed in the past and that's why the thread was started

[frail comet]

But its cool, agree to disagree then. I just think clearer rules is better for everyone involved.

[marble adder]

yeah I agree

[frail comet]

I've shown enough.

[lament dawn]

Terraforming -> Resources still spawn. Paving -> Blockes resources. Same effort, one more critically affecting than the other in outcome.

[frail comet]

Why do you think the paving happened? Because they were buddies?

They flattened the entire claim maliciously in response to him touching a road.

[marble adder]

both bad, rules will be more clear in the future hopefully, this thread did what we needed it to I think :3

[wide lake]

Wasn't because he didn't like him. Was because the he was at war

[frail comet]

It wasn't got away with it, it wasn't 'missed'. It was EXPLICITLY said it was ALLOWED.

[long zephyr]

man the whole point of this thread is that we need consistent rules. Both cases are griefing and should have the same actions. We're not here to discuss severity or duration...

[frail comet]

And it was allowed because it was reversable.

[lament dawn]

There is a difference to be drawn in intent as well. Terraforming around a Tower for PVP reasons is one thing, terraforming around a claim to be a jerk is a whole other thing

[wide lake]

Did the devs update rules or are we waiting on that?

[marble adder]

it was kind of said that similar things were allowed, but doing it with intent to grief was grey area and bordering harassment right? idk it got confusing toward the end

[frail comet]

The very fact of the matter is that it's inconsistent. The thread isn't calling for PK to be unpunished, the thread is calling for clearer rules.

[lament dawn]

At the moment its sorta agreed in this instance to stop it. The devs have not outright come out and said the rules. The info is being compiled and they will make their decision

[wide lake]

I do look forward to the devs making a specific post or something, here or elsewhere. That'll be nice. Will prevent in the future stuff like this as we'll know the lines

[lament dawn]

Ive said it before and I'll say it again. Just cause you can do something, doesnt mean you should

[lament dawn]

I'd say give em a day or two, theres alooooot to for them to go over and discuss as a team.

[vale rivet]

or a week or two

or a month or two

[lament dawn]

Keep in mind they arent a big team. And there is aloooot of us. Alot of messages, alot of complaints.

[vale rivet]

i'm aware, but it's been probably at least a month since the reason this thread was created?

this happened now specifically because the devs condoned it

[lament dawn]

Sure. But how many other issues are they dealing with Wiz? How many other balancing complaints, content complaints, social complaints?

[hoary rapids]

This thread's fallback is to various subjective, interpreted sets of rules. And the cycle repeats. CWL has confirmed this will be a topic in the near future - if people really want to argue morals on the internet, there are whole reddit servers dedicated to it

[lament dawn]

This whole scenario if anything should be the catalyst to make it clear they need to give attention to the lack of clear ruling/design whatever. Now all we can do is wait for siad ruling, and trust me when I say many in this chat will not let it go unnoticed.

[wide lake]

Funny to imagine the CWL meetings today,

"Okay, guys, war has broken out in our game. We gotta figure some stuff out."

"Haven't they been warring since the start?"

"Yeah but this is in R5"

[vale rivet]

yea but it took them one work day to fix boss regen and another 2 days to fix relogging. that's their priority and not the uh, social aspects of the social sandbox?

[marble adder]

Yeah I mean there's a lot of things that are grey on this, they didn't condone this specific instance they were asked questions related to other similar issues and the info they gave in response was applied to this instance and used to defend grey area actions. It might take a little time for them to update the info but it'll be a good change to have some clarify on what's allowed I think

[lament dawn]

Yeah cause that is where the BIG complaints were. And now? The BIG complaint is this.

[vale rivet]

this is super narrow minded gonna be honest

this issue (the terraforming, not the empire part) affects like 2 players, naughty and the person who hunted there or whatever (and tbh they can hunt elsewhere too)

[marble adder]

some things are much easier fixes

and this technically affects everyone and has affected others in other similar situations in the past

[vale rivet]

everyone else is here making drama over it because the one affected player started stuff in region chat

[cosmic snow]

The fact this thread been going on for 7 hrs seems to me that the prior issues haven't gotten enough attention

The fact they don't condone or approve but see per situation/player instead of clear guideline/rules makes everything okay and everything wrong because it is personal perception.

Now I know small team and everything but considering the ppl who still around wanna help improve the game it should require a bit more TLC than they have in the past

[vale rivet]

yes my point is that it affected people in the past and CWL said it was totally ok in the past

[marble adder]

it's not drama it's a request to be more clear on rules that are very vague you're free to disagree but realistically this kind of thing could affect everyone

[vale rivet]

therefore it is not a bigger issue now than it was before

people are just more vocal about it now

[marble adder]

many people take in new info and grow from that and make changes

[frail comet]

The absolute best thing I want to come out of this thread is a better game for everyone. I couldn't give a rats about the empire stuff.

[lament dawn]

That. Is narrow minded. If you let one do it, more will do it. And if everyone is doing it where are we supposed to go?

[marble adder]

and the game that's in early access probably should too

[frail comet]

Or PK

[vale rivet]

you just totally didnt read what i said

[cosmic snow]

When next interview.. Raise the point live on stream🤓

[vale rivet]

i want better ruling. i have for months. all i said is that this instance isnt more significant than previous ones objectively. people are just being more emotional about it than previous cases.

[umbral warren]

very optimistic of you to think we'll make it to next live stream

[lament dawn]

You're not reading what Im saying either. But Im not going to fight with you. Out of respect for your group, and the Devs.

[vale rivet]

wtf is my group????

[umbral warren]

all 3 of yall scholars

[vale rivet]

i'm doing scholar crafts in r2, have been since day 1.

[muted niche]

terraforming to attack other players during a war is good actually

[frail comet]

round and round we go

[muted niche]

Omegalul

[tropic void]

Thread is so long because half of it is explaining that the title of the thread, is what the thread is about

Wild

[vale rivet]

reading is hard

[tropic void]

I also skipped like half of it when I came in lol

[vale rivet]

i woke up this morning to a patch, had to update brico and rip assets remotely on my phone, and then heard that pk actually got actioned for something the devs previously condoned and had to catch up on this entire thread.

but i had waffles for breakfast so i've got that going for me

[ruby pasture]

It took me hours to fix what's shown in the image, and I only did maybe 80% of the work. When terraforming, you can just click and chill for a bit, but fixing pavement griefing takes consistent active gameplay and many clicks per minute.

[sonic finch]

Valid frustration, though it applies to the effort in placing it as well

Agree that that makes it pretty bad, in retrospect.

[brazen trail]

Its hard to balance because the griefing can go both ways. We don't want pavement removal to be too easy because then legitimate roads would get ripped up. But then that causes problems when pavement itself is used for griefing. Same with terraforming

I'm in favor of claims having a "soft territory" radius that can be researched at maybe T3. Soft territory wouldn't change anything for non-members but would significantly speed up terraforming and paving related activities for members with build perms. The intent being that claims would have an advantage in situations where griefing happens nearby. The only issue would be how to handle areas where soft territories overlap

[vernal summit]

There have been other threads/suggestions on paving/terra protection, and I'm curious to see if the devs will be able to implement something there that solves many of these issues while also allowing for freedom of play. Twice now I've had fully built roads ruined by another player dropping a settlement in the middle -- who is to say which is more legitimate? In this game claim tiles are the ultimate form of influence, but what if I and a neighbor both want the same beachfront? The same cave entrance? What if I want a wall where they want a road? What if we both want a road but in a different design ...

[vale rivet]

i like minecraft's per-chunk-difficulty modifier. if you live in one area for a while, hostiles will spawn less. this means you can't just drop a claim somewhere to get claim-based bonuses immediately.

[muted niche]

Devs seem to think that they can have a multiplayer game where players are allowed to tangibly affect each other without some toxicity and conflict and that the solution lies in better rules and game mechanics...

[brazen trail]

I think that's where active moderation needs to play a role. imo the devs need to nail down concrete guidelines and then have a mod team that can resolve those issues. The current rules already consider the use of claim totems for griefing to be against the rules but whenever an issue arises we need a moderator to come and determine the intent behind a new claim in a controversial area

[muted niche]

The only way to enforce non-conflict in a multiplayer game where players can tangibly affect each other through game mechanics is by removing game mechanics or making incentives highly punishing to players. However the incentive problem requires an absurd level of detection or finesse in game design that makes it a non-starter

Its a utopic notion of player behaviour that is infecting the brains of the devs

The devs can choose actively moderating or endorsing conflict. They want less moderation so they have to find some acceptable conflict and allow some level of grief

This is the utopic notion of player behaviour i am referring to. As if every player will act in a way that is perfectly rational, and as if players (humans) are not predisposed to some level of conflict that naturally occurs

As if the bad actor is acting in a way that is completely and utterly irrational?

[honest needle]

No immediate update, I suggested the creation of the thread to help get community insight and feedback to help bring some changes and/or clarification on ruling

[vale rivet]

this is a terrible description of the situation

except if naughty stopped seiging towers pk would have stopped too. the problem lies in the fact that there's no empire-layer counterplay to an land-less empire annoying you by attacking a dozen towers.

[sonic finch]

One, 'I'm going to grief him until he does what I want in-game' is not a defense. Obviously. Explicitly.

Two, nobody who's seen naughty talk for more than two seconds is going to think he's going to stop if you grief him for a while.

[vale rivet]

so he decided to take it to the next gameplay layer, which was totally within the rules. he was being an ass yes, but for the sake of counterplay.

i dont think pk cared if naughty would actually stop

it's more of a "if you keep annoying us i will keep annoying you". childish maybe but if you consider one malice you should consider the other malice too

it's only a bad actor if both are

you only treat them differently because you believe empire layer annoyances are ok but terraforming layer annoyances arent

naughty has no realistic way to get the territory, and early screenshots prove he was doing it to be annoying in hopes of reaching his goal. not to legitimately win a tower but to annoy them until they gave up.

that is the same situation on both sides

right like i said, not realistic. they could just take it back anyway

read the receipts

[muted niche]

'the capacity to do malicious things in the game merely exists and one person was openly and consistently doing them for the explicit purpose of being malicious'.
^ explain how this problem would be solved without removing the mechanics 🙂

[sonic finch]

Banning outlier bad-actors for harassment and griefing. The community isn't that big. Dealing with edge-cases is still easy.

[muted niche]

CWL has already stated their preference for less moderated gameplay. Your solution is add moderation capacity?

[sonic finch]

CWL just actioned him yesterday.

You think further action isn't a possibility if he continues?

[vale rivet]

are you in favor of banning the people from tortuga who nuked murgatroyd's claim then? how about banning murgatroyd?

[muted niche]

This is a scalable solution to you?

[sonic finch]

I don't know what murgatroyd did, but a lesser action against the primary instigator of that paving incident seems entirely justified, as a line in the sand.

[muted niche]

'the capacity to do malicious things in the game merely exists'

I hope you can already see this is not a "better mechanics" problem, but a "mechanics exist" problem

[meager folio]

outsource other empires with a deal to run more capsules to upkeep the defense, plenty of smaller empires that could benefit from it

been lurking this thread and I agree the walling, paving removal on established highways, and malicious terraforming can be griefing, but intent aside, this can be problematic if "landless empire keeps sieging an empire is set as griefing

[muted niche]

As long as the ability for players to grief each other exists, players will grief each other. However, the issue that the mechanics of player griefing are the same ones that allow players to interact with each other.

[south lance]

I'm new to the conversation. Can someone point me to/tell me about the inciting incident?

[vale rivet]

gotta read the whole thread sorry

also there's multiple. this thread just keeps getting hijacked

the original incident that inspired the thread predates all of this ofc

[south lance]

What I know: terraform griefing is occuring in response to tower attack

[sonic finch]

TL;DR — Naughty, from nottingham NE of Dragonshead in R5, was annoying in chat and sieged Toad towers (and a few other supports or such) through empire mechanics. Pkfyre, a toad, went over there and began griefing nottingham, openly and explicitly. CWL actioned him by removing his ability to start constructions for 18 hours. Toads are upset because previous griefing was not actioned similarly.

[vale rivet]

this again misses important points

[muted niche]

There will never be a way to let players interact without also having the occurrence of conflict. This is just a true fact. Whatever line you draw griefing at will have to be dealt with by moderation. CWL doesnt want high moderation, so you get low moderation and dealing of extremes, but you have to be open to some level of hostile griefing

If griefing exists, players will grief. This is also just a true fact. You can have less griefing, but that comes with less player interaction. If you have low moderation, you will also just have to accept some level of griefing

[vale rivet]

if it was just a random attack they would have fended it off and no one would care. the retaliation happened specifically because the attacker promised to be annoying as possible over a drawn out period.

[vale rivet]

they should instance regions clearly. instead of 9 regions, make a region per claim.

you can tp to others' regions but cant interact with it all. whole region is protected

[muted niche]

true and real and based god wiz

[slender birch]

There should have been a way to retaliate against PK to be fair imo. He has nothing to lose, thus invincible.

[vale rivet]

plot-based minebitcraft server ezpz

[vale rivet]

neither does naughty

[vital hazel]

I agree, but it misses one crucial point: fortifying those grievances by placing a claims on top. There musst be a very low limit of claims per player, or better, for empires to mark settlement areas or exclusion zones for new claims and to somewhat protect their infrastructure without placing claims everywhere

[slender birch]

Right, too many ways to annoy people without risk.

[vale rivet]

if it was two landed empires they could have had wallet wars like cwl intended. but it's not.

[umbral warren]

there's nothing to lose but these chains

[sonic finch]

The way to retaliate against Naughty is adding capsules to the watchtower.

[vale rivet]

that's not retaliation that's defense

i think you have the wrong dictionary

[brazen trail]

If the enemy empire has no territory, havent you already won? Painting the map your color is the whole point of the empire system. If the enemy has no towers, all that's left to do is defend. I don't think there needs to be a way to retaliate further

[muted niche]

You cannot have high player interaction and very little griefing. Every mode of player interaction is a mode of griefing. You can heavily disincentivise griefing, but you will also be in some way disincentivising player interaction. Ultimately it comes down to what kind of interaction you find acceptable.

[warm thistle]

in every game where there's any form of pvp at all, the guy on the receiving end will call it griefing and the one on the doing end will call it pvping

[vale rivet]

except the attacker wanted to be annoying specifically. and stated as such.

[muted niche]

As long as the CWL stance is low moderation, the answer is accept a form of conflict/grief

[vale rivet]

tbh i dont even care if it's called griefing by the community, if the rules say griefing is allowed it doesnt matter lol

"griefing" doesnt mean "prohibited behavior"

what

i'm saying what people call it doesnt affect the rules

[warm thistle]

as an outsider to this, it sure seems like most people agree that rules aren't applied evenly

[vale rivet]

"terraforming nonclaimed areas is allowed" doesnt care if you call it griefing

the point of the thread is to clarify the first part, not the second

[sonic finch]

Doing it repeatedly and explicitly to annoy one person violates the rules re: harassment.

[tropic void]

Ironacly by all technicalits it wasn't greifing, it had the intended in game goal of getting more teritory

[muted niche]

I am part of the community but i think it is good and should not be stopped and should be a part of the game

[vale rivet]

this goes both ways then

[sonic finch]

Trying to rules-lawyer your way out of something most people agree is bad and was actioned by CWL isn't going to change anything.

[sonic finch]

Naughty did it to gain territory. Clearly.

[vale rivet]

"attacking empires is allowed" vs "harrassing an empire until they give you land" hmmmmmmmm

[tropic void]

This topic is the real pvp people were asking for

[vale rivet]

clearly not by their own admission

[muted niche]

But is it griefing?

[south lance]

Is anyone entitled to land more than someone else?

[tropic void]

Depends what people want out of it, does the winner get a cool hat?

[umbral warren]

if you reply with a ping you're lowkey griefing I don't make the rules

[sonic finch]

Sieging a tower is not harassment. What they said, though uncool, is irrelevant to their actions, actions which had a clear and material benefit for themselves and do not constitute harassment by any sane metric.

[muted niche]

you get a cool hat!

[tropic void]

hell yeah

I desire to go on an air plane

[warm thistle]

didn't he do it specifically to be annoying? he said as much in the screenshots that pop up everywhere

[vernal summit]

And these are exactly the sort of rules that we don't need, unless you are a multiboxer who stays in one high level claim and leans on the moderation team to ensure priority access to all surrounding resources, including biomes across the map.

[vital hazel]

Says the multiboxer?

[tropic void]

Which is alowed right

[vernal summit]

I have 2 (like many active players here), how many are your team running?

[warm thistle]

what does farming fiber have to do with organizing an effort specifically to annoy people for months?

[vital hazel]

1. Some 2

[brazen trail]

Frequently besieging towers is annoying but it's contained to within the empire system. I think there is definitely a discussion to be had on how tower seiges work but it's not equivalent to terraforming or pavement griefing. If an empire's capsules are spread so thin that a guerilla force besieging random towers is a legitimate threat, maybe they need to rethink their holdings. Defending those towers comes with the territory (pun intended)

[vale rivet]

this is real as heck

[tropic void]

but the ultimate goal is to get the other party to give up on said tower

[vale rivet]

it's not that they cant defend, it's that it's annoying

[warm thistle]

but if terraforming right outside one guy's town is griefing, why is terraforming to mess up stuff right outside toad towns not griefing?

[meager folio]

I understand its annoying as a silver lining it can be a very interesting opportunity for some rp lite, some trade with other smaller empires for supply

[vital hazel]

But you can not haveone player put claims totally around a settlement for spite and grievances. It's what the game does not need.

[sonic finch]

? It would be. I didn't see naughty doing that. If someone did, they should be equivalently actioned.

[meager folio]

or even full capsules

[tropic void]

aye we did it, we looped back around to the origional topic of the thread. Peeps want clarication for the sake of consitancy

[vale rivet]

did you ever answer me on the tuga/troyd question?

[meager folio]

lots of empires that choose to go landless have tons of hexite just sitting there

probably wouldnt mind turning that into cash defending one of the most illustrious empires in bitcraft

[vale rivet]

where did you draw the line exactly. and why is that the correct line

[muted niche]

the real answer is to allow terraforming in empire conflicts

[vale rivet]

where do you think naughty got the shards lol

[muted niche]

let the children slapfight each other on the playground until they learn to play nice

[meager folio]

I know but naughty isnt the only landless emp out there

[vale rivet]

the real answer is to remove empires from the game

[meager folio]

most are very chill emps

[vale rivet]

murgatroyd narrowed a frankly quite highway-like and unclaimed road by 2 tiles so it wouldnt clash with his aesthetic so much

[sonic finch]

The correct line is don't be a ghoul and try to grief people for no reason other than to harass them. Obviously. A massive game would need to regulate that simple fact to avoid ghouls needing individual attention, but there's like 1200 people online.

That's, at most, 5 ghouls.

[vale rivet]

totally allowed by the rules. the retaliation was flattening and paving everything around, and even destroying resources inside his claim.

also apparently allowed

[muted niche]

Devs should let the sandbox naturally develop and only step in when threats are thrown around or a complete inability to engage with the game is caused

[hoary rapids]

I thought this thread was about ambiguity of interpretation. But I guess subjective opinions are still subjectively more fun...

[sonic finch]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The fact that moderators did not action it then does not mean targetted harassment is therefore allowed, unless they came out and said hey yeah that was fine.

[vale rivet]

yea they did

[sonic finch]

Then yeah, that should be fixed and clarified.

[vale rivet]

they posted their clarifications on griefing and said it was allowed

hence this thread

[tropic void]

A thread that long since served it's purpose* but aye people are having fun beefing so why not

[vale rivet]

true

i'll prob leave for lunch soon. got a million or more effort of crafts done already.

[lone depot]

but naughty offered to pay people to terraform as well? are his hands clean because he didnt do it himself?

[umbral warren]

did ppl actually get paid? and I missed out on some good coinerinos?

[vale rivet]

lmaoooo

[tropic void]

still not greifing, it's a dirty ass turf war but whatever

suck yeah

'war is hell' ass moment

[warm thistle]

if it's griefing if pk does it, then it's griefing if the other guy does it too
if it's not griefing if the other guy does it, then it's not griefing if pk does it

[tropic void]

I'm on team 2nd line

[vale rivet]

you sold your shards already right? that's prob the best you were gonna get

[muted niche]

#notgriefing

[warm thistle]

the way it sure looks like it's being enforced is: it's griefing because pk joined the big empire, and it's not griefing because the other guy isn't a big empire

[hoary rapids]

biased opinions matter! subjective truth is the only truth! make bitcraft great again!

[warm thistle]

pretty sure i live in r3 and am not part of toad anything

[tropic void]

Owned

[warm thistle]

you're in there too. that makes you a toad right?

[tropic void]

why would you know that

double owned

[cerulean thorn]

True I also don't see Teloril doing that either

[tropic void]

go for the tripple

[strong cipher]

Not everyone in the discord is a toad lmao

[tropic void]

-looks at lux with a frog avatar-

ahuuu

[strong cipher]

I had my pfp before bitcraft but sure

[tropic void]

it made me laugh

[strong cipher]

Nonetheless theres people in the empire that arent even in the discord as well

[sonic finch]

Feel free to reference their bias as well.

[fair falcon]

We didn't do any griefing the stuff has been delt with why by mods and this should be drop XD but you guys are giving me good entertainment

[strong cipher]

Wiz is in our discord and hes not even in our region

[tropic void]

The toads are everywhere

They're* in the god damn walls

[umbral warren]

especially if you ocean fish too much

I'm in both discords rn front row seat too invested

[strong cipher]

You must be a toad then

Toad scum

[fair falcon]

Smol just watching the world burn XD love them

[muted niche]

Vicks cant just discuss the issue without calling people toads or ghouls or griefers lol

[cosmic snow]

Can't be bothered to read all but small scroll conclusion is we deviated from the point/subject of the thread again?

[sonic finch]

I discussed it very thoroughly, thx.

[tropic void]

Yeah, let them personaly attack people for where they choose to hang out

[muted niche]

While calling people toads or ghouls or griefers lol

[warm thistle]

might as well call me a beer or a tree, since that's really where i live

[fair falcon]

Yep went off the deep end again

[sonic finch]

And?

[strong cipher]

Vicks whos alt are you

I dont know who that is man

[tropic void]

Absolutly, even activly makeing fun of the situation isn't makeing them realise

Sounds like a toad thing to say, must be a toad

[umbral warren]

it's the most exciting thing over the past couple weeks ngl

[tropic void]

better disregard their opionion

[warm thistle]

wait, might actually be a frog you know, very hard to tell the difference

[fair falcon]

Yep it like r6 all over again the great auto mod wars

[tropic void]

You might be on to something, the suspense is quite ribiting

aww whyd my faces break

[hoary rapids]

Narcissism dictates this can not be.

[strong cipher]

Im trip79

[warm thistle]

isn't everyone trip? who's trip?

[cosmic snow]

What does it matter what empire you from.. Thought the suggestion and even this discord isn't ment to bring in game stuff here..

It is Just for improvement of the game?

[warm thistle]

see i knew there were frogs hiding in the walls

[sonic finch]

When a twitch-streamers' followers want to mob a discussion it obviously absolutely matters where they're from.

[hoary rapids]

And that is not bias?

[sonic finch]

It is the recognition of potential bias.

[tropic void]

Oh no

[hoary rapids]

Its clear bias in action.

[muted niche]

Potential bias does not invalidate an argument

[tropic void]

sombody has a pre desposition towards an opionion

[sonic finch]

It's still relevant.

[strong cipher]

Its not like we wanted to be brought into this

[tropic void]

if only their was a way to persuade them otherwise

[muted niche]

All you do is characterise the argument to colour it unfavorably without actually addressing the contents

[sonic finch]

This is the second time you've pretended I didn't address the argument directly and at length.

[muted niche]

Ghoul ghoul ghoul. Let players fight

[warm thistle]

the bias is only relevant if you're not pro-aurora, right? obviously vicks doesn't have any bias against any frog-related empires

[strong cipher]

Somehow someone thinks what pk did is on us when we never told him to do anything and tel told him to stop so what else is there to do

[lone depot]

can we all agree that we are just waiting for CWL to draft a list of war crimes so we dont have to deal with terraforming fallout for every major and minor war

[sonic finch]

PK was high-fiving in your discord up until, and after, the actioning. Nobody not involved with you is gonna buy the 'gosh, what could tel have done, he did all he could' nonsense.

[tropic void]

Pk is a frog, wait i was told he was a solo empire. Man the lore is all kinds of borked

[cosmic snow]

You know what they say about assumptions right

[muted niche]

Waiting for cwl to tear up the geneva suggestion and let them grief

[cerulean thorn]

If i remember looking at this thread it was everyone but the toads (exclude problem child PKFyre) that turned this thread into a witch hunt to ban Pkfyre. The people who spoke about actually fixing the rules were people like tel and his toads

[tropic void]

They posted a clear list of what is and isn't ok and people are still harping on. I truly feel sory for voxel

[sonic finch]

Of course Tel wants to make it about the rules, when it was clearly about a singular very-bad-actor.

[slender birch]

If PK was not on behalf of the ottoadman, his action was pure griefing. Concluded.

[cerulean thorn]

The title of this post is "Inconsistent enforcment of rules by CWL employees" and the employees asking about what rules and you all just screamed BAN HIM instead of talking about the rules

[ruby pasture]

Catching up on the thread now - @sonic finch I want to ask, what exactly are you trying to accomplish here? After reading your comments I got the impression that you, on a moral basis, take issue with individuals griefing via terraforming (correct?)

However, this is both not the purpose of this thread, at least as it was originally intended, nor is this behavior at all against the rules as I can best understand them (see #bitcraft-chat message )

I would suggest that you make a new thread with your ideas for how the rules should be written and enforced because I don't think what you are sayign is relevant to this topic (I understand it got derailed pretty badly, but still...) I agree broadly with your views and think they deserve their own thread

[cerulean thorn]

You litterally had a CWL employee in here to talk about rules and y'all cried to him instead

[marble adder]

A lot of people asked for them to either take action or make the rules more clear

[vale rivet]

this is purely so i can dunk on tel to be clear.

[cosmic snow]

Don't give a F with a streamer/emperor wants..

It is their opinion.. I'm not a mindless lemming

And I'll say it once again

The point of this thread was: vague rules being interpreted by ppl on their own way

And if"rules" are enforced then it should be even and not depending on the admin who handles it

[marble adder]

Because the rules leave a lot of room for grey area

[vale rivet]

also like i'm in ludens, csb, tortuga, etc discord too

[strong cipher]

Well because what hes doing is within the rules of the game as there was previous precedent. Which brought up this entire discussion in the first place because pk thought it was within the boundries of the game. Idk why you think tel has power over pk when theyve publicly had disagreements in region chat and in our discord. What else do you want tel to do? Chain pk to his basement or something?

[vale rivet]

dont threaten him with a good time

[cerulean thorn]

Yes but if he wasn't part of ottoadman he wouldn't have gotten involved because he wouldn't have been involved in the war

[strong cipher]

and we love you for that keep reminding him hes third pelase

[vale rivet]

almost 3rd

[sonic finch]

You and me disagree on the purpose of this thread. This thread was created because they told them to stop gunking up main with complaints of a griefer being actioned, and it was created in an attempt to change the discussion of events from what actually happened — a griefer being actioned — into a rules-lawyer debate, that could potentially be used to facilitate future griefing by pointing to caveats that weren't hammered out perfectly at the time.

[cosmic snow]

Don't care about individual players and or empires..

It's flawed atm in vision and execution and the

Devs should do better.. Either in rules or enforcing or game mechanics

Because this will make people disheartened

[marble adder]

Idk why you guys are still fighting about it when pk stopped and the empires have already agreed to fight peacefully through towers and the devs have already said they’re going to work on updating the rules

[vale rivet]

cuz no in game pvp so we must discord pvp

[marble adder]

Fair enough

[strong cipher]

We cant even properly discord pvp

[lone depot]

PK is a member of the ottoadmans, but he is not a guildmaster for the record. and also joining the empire is literally like 2 clicks to do so

[cosmic snow]

Because you aren't getting the point of the entire 9 hr thread @marble adder

You guys trying to make it personal

[sonic finch]

You are correct that I oppose what they did, with terraform-griefing, and think it's absolutely absurd not only that people are griefing in a cozy crafting game, but that they care that much about a name on the map in the first place. The larger issue, in the context of how minor those concerns are, are players griefing and harassing other players, which went on in Region Chat for a whole day annoying everyone.

[cosmic snow]

Don't need names to feed suggestions for improvement

[marble adder]

Who is you guys? I’m not a part of either side I was against the idea of griefing but I just wanted them to make it clear what was considered allowed so we didn’t get attacked for no reason

I tried to generalize and was asked to clarify

[tropic void]

Update on that, they made it clear

[marble adder]

The only thing that was personal was wanting to know where the line was so I personally wouldn’t have to worry about grief when I wasn’t attacking anyone lol

[warm thistle]

"you guys" probably means the ones auto-assuming everyone that agrees with the original purpose of the thread is a toad

[cosmic snow]

Just everyone who uses a name in discussion about game mechanic

It don't matter in the goal for this conversation.. Was intended to improve the game..

Not to get 8hr discussion about player a or player b

It doesn't help the game if we all looking back instead of looking forward and helping to get there

[tropic void]

Btw, no idea how this hasn't ended this squabble. 100% correct

[slender birch]

Tbh there is no real answer here.

[tropic void]

Counter point

That's what the link leads to

[ruby pasture]

This is totally right - but consider the scenario where the next time something like this happens, the perpetrator isn't dumb enough (sorry Pk) to outright state they are griefing, and instead hold on to the excuse that they are doing it to make tower access more difficult. What then?

This is why I think the rules need to be clearer

[strong cipher]

Theres also the issue of how close a tower can be to a settlement before its considered griefing.

[tropic void]

There was another post that fully clarified what was and wasn't ok

[warm thistle]

this scenario is theoretically relevant to me, a guy who lives decently close to a tower (though i obviously wouldn't attack it, that'd be a waste of my time and shards)

[tropic void]

Buuuuut I didn't think to screenshot it, woops

[snow chasm]

yea this has already happened, some people who are obviously griefing try to gaslight their way out of it by claiming that their terraformed wall of china is actually a "road", etc. and this excuse somehow worked 😵‍💫

[tropic void]

Anyway it 3am and my phones on 1%. That can't be good, best of luck sorting this out

[strong cipher]

If theres one thing CWL has been consistent about its that they want players moderating in game disputes

[marble adder]

They haven’t given players any tools for that

[slender birch]

without pvp

[strong cipher]

Is that necessarily our problem or an oversight

They put the empire system in the game to encourage land dispute, and terraforming has been this way for months

And while there are talks about giving us more tools to prevent griefing and such those are just talks and theyve left in game disputes to us

[lone depot]

the tool they give you is a credit card /s

[marble adder]

That doesn’t punish individuals with no empire

There’s no way for players to moderate currently other than trying to talk things out

[snow chasm]

unfrotuntaely swiping wont fix all the resource blocking, paving, etc

[lone depot]

edited for sarcasm

[marble adder]

Which means you end up with one sided interactions where individuals will do something messed up and there’s no way to retaliate or discourage it

Very helpful ty pie 🙄

[slender birch]

If you people really want this to be prioritized, go take actions. Go terraform around the world. I would, if I were the victim.

[marble adder]

That only makes things worse

[snow chasm]

lets just all start paving everything, everywhere

to save Bitcraft, we must destroy Bitcraft

[slender birch]

But it will help fix the game

[umbral warren]

post EA wipe takes too long so we'll do it ourselves

[strong cipher]

Paving everything is not only disruptive but its also ugly

[warm thistle]

takes forever to get rid of too

[umbral warren]

depends tho, if you put in the effort to pave bad apple frames I'd let it slide

[snow chasm]

the devs should take a very close look at the game Boundless' design, their land claiming system, and how the game turned out long term (i.e. died off). it wasn't perfect by any means, but there's ideas there, and definitely some lessons learned that could be extracted rather than learning them the hard way

[warm thistle]

boundless was fun until it had 0 players 3 months in

[vale rivet]

no shot

[umbral warren]

one could dream

[ember cedar]

Pretty sure this is already the conclusion but would like to clarify it's my preferred conclusion anyway. It makes sense to me to not have a bunch of moderation and to try and resolve things via the game engine instead. However to some degree there will always be a gap between the technical limitations of the game and the desired rules. Which makes it vital to have a clear set of rules on what types of actions are and aren't intended so that the community can at least self-regulate until the game engine better reflects the desired rule-set in the future. Even if every single instance of griefing isn't moderated, I should be able to look at a set of rules and tell if the action was intended to be possible in the game or not. AKA a set of rules can have value even without a team or technical limitation to enforce it AND transparency as to the desired direction of the game is a good thing.

Clearly stating rules and intentions even if the goal is for the game mechanics to reflect it instead of moderate also means that in the rare case you DO need to step in and moderate, you don't have to worry about "we were unclear on the rules so can't punish."

(no reply for this needed I just wanted to get my 2 cents in)

edit: Sorry, I think I started reading about an hour ago 😅

[umbral warren]

thank god it's been over an hr I thought the thread died

[snow chasm]

it was lunch time

[undone lynx]

The people whose opinions I care about are largely in agreement with my viewpoint of the situation, so I'll take this one as a W.

[olive sapphire]

Oh yeah we dealt with something similar in Veltrassa (region 3) these guys called Kurdistan kept griefing our continent roads and building walls around Beerhold and it took almost a month for even a subsection of the moderation team to decide it was griefing, and that was after a member had reached out to a dev and the dev said it straight up wasn’t griefing

[undone lynx]

Should have said I did it.

Mod team would be activated at light speed.

[olive sapphire]

I will put this out there, I’ve been saying this for awhile but there’s currently little to no system to let players deal with problem people, and at this point the only thing it leaves many is counter harassment, this is a solution that benefits no one.

As such there should be a system in place that lets us deal with it better, maybe by letting emperors apply for a moderation lite role or something like that?

[undone lynx]

I'm pretty sure this is still going on as we speak as well: #🖼️│bitcraft-screenshots message

[opaque umbra]

Given that anyone can become an emperor by spending money

Maybe not

[olive sapphire]

That’s why I said application tho, have a certain baseline for it, so it lets the moderation team monitor them to a degree, and if they abuse power, instant termination

And maybe require them have x amount of people, I dunno

I feel like there’s gotta be a middle line between few moderators, and making everyone a moderator lmfao

[opaque umbra]

If they’re going to do player mods, which I don’t really think they should, I think the team should reach out to those people directly

Rather than having it be an application thing

[olive sapphire]

Honestly fair

[ember cedar]

if player mods is a thing, it should not be based on emperor status

[snow chasm]

is player mods something that has been discussed? what an on-its-face horrible idea

no conflict of interest here

[opaque umbra]

it's not something that has been discussed at all

Jafa brought it up

[undone lynx]

Terrible idea tbh, have you seen the players?

[snow chasm]

whew, i was worried lol

[opaque umbra]

The devs have not brought it up, no

and I don't think anyone in the community would like it if they went that direction

[snow chasm]

insert star wars obi wan meme

[undone lynx]

While the devs deliberate their rules, the game continues.

A little birdie told me that UMB declared war on Tortuga, my malet may not be wanted but it is ready.

What are the rules of engagement.

[umbral warren]

UMB did what now

[undone lynx]

These supply lines need disrupting

Protect the watch towers

[fringe girder]

[vale rivet]

can only hope it remains civil 🙃

[vernal summit]

It's not, but for some reason @snow chasm keeps bringing it up with a neat but inaccurate diagram. Best to visit the area if curious and form your own opinion of whether anyone has been materially inconvenienced by the presence of neighbors in a prime location! It might be a good case study for exploring the boundaries of:
claim separation -- the large site expanded closer to the smaller, and at no point did any of the small claims trap the larger, but should there be a larger buffer zone that expands based on claim tier?
resource blocking -- devs have clarified that caves are resources and may be blocked, but would it make a difference if it was a t4/7/8 cave instead of a lowly and abundant t1?,
animal pits -- several have been dug in the area, more possible, but does proximity to your site or another impact whether they are considered a convenience or an annoyance?,
access/easements -- devs have indicated that one is not required to permit other players to travel through your claim, but you don't need to surround an area to diminish or even eliminate land-based access to key resources or other biomes. In my opinion when you choose a place to set up shop, you take the risk that other players will establish sites closer to the resources you may want later, and they have every right to make that access more convenient for themselves and less convenient for rivals. Look at the extensive road DH has created east to the Pine Forest (very cool imo), but does anyone believe for a minute that that access should be protected without using claims?

[ember cedar]

for player mods I had thought of it a bit in the past but I think it should be very limited. Like you get "voted in" by a server as an option, than approved by the devs and even then most of your mod power is "I was told my opinions are solid and people agree with me so maybe calm down" or appealing to Devs for actual action stuff. So essentially a filter for Dev moderation/voice of reason, not direct moderation by itself

edit: essentially community mods would get/lose their privilege based on whether they make the Dev's jobs easier or harder when it comes to cultivating a good community

[brazen trail]

If player mods become a thing I think it needs to disqualify them from participating in the empire system. That means no joining an empire, no joining/owning claims pledged to an empire, and no transporting capsules. They have to be neutral parties

[frail comet]

No player mods. Absolutely not.

Go look at the steam reviews of any community based game like this. You'll see 100 paragraph posts from someone with 5000 hours saying how the community was ruined by favoured player mods or bad GM decisions - INCLUDING ours.

[ember cedar]

potentially. I think having an empire just means you shouldn't mediate anything involving it personally. Like a lawyer recusing themselves from a case, not a lawyer never being allowed to have a legal conflict with someone. For example I have an empire off on the edge of the world and I feel like I'm more likely to find middle grounds and such. But I also don't get into empire conflicts with anyone so it's rare I'd need a mediation involving empires instead of just personal ones. But if the best way to get community support is banning emperors I'm fine with that. Or just no player mods

[ember cedar]

do those mods actually have mod powers? cause my idea removes that

[frail comet]

They don't need power, a simple title is enough to cause people to go off their rocker.

If you need any example of why we definitely should not have player mods, I urge you to check out this thread with 950 comments: https://discord.com/channels/558439686083969035/1415632980671729734

[undone lynx]

Player mods are probably the dumbest thing CWL could possibly implement.

[ember cedar]

I mean if a mod keeps upping issues that aren't real issues to the team OR is abusing their title than they could just lose the title. But honestly I think the game is pretty fine with the level of moderation they have no so I don't really care to argue on this. Their moderation mostly just needs consistency of rulings and transparency more than anything else I think

[frail comet]

Thus we return to the OP

[undone lynx]

Voxel sort of outlined what it needs. In-game mechanics and systems that don't allow or incentivize undesireable gameplay to occur in the first place, thus not requiring moderation.

While said systems are being developed, clearly defined (battle-tested, mulled over, hole-poked) rules of engagement to remove any and all ambiquity. Eliminating situations where rules (currently just randomly changing 'guidelines') are applied differently, and unequally, situation to situation by whoever at CWL happens to be handling the issue.

[ember cedar]

for sure the ideal is game systems to do moderation for them essentially via core mechanics. But as I mentioned in my info dump, there will always be a separation between reality and intention and so it's important to clearly state those intentions even if you aren't gonna ban hammer people into obeying them until you update the core mechanics. So pretty sure we are in agreement there at least. Even if I imagine our ideal rule sets are likely very different

[frail comet]

I think where the differences lie is you seem to believe it will be impossible to stamp out any ambiguity of situations.

Which, if we are given CLEAR DO's and DON'Ts of empire warfare, not rules or guidelines, can be eliminated.

[ember cedar]

1, it IS impossible to stomp out all ambiguity in anything ever. And 2, I agree that clear guidelines would be a massive improvement even without enforcement

[south lance]

I do think it is impossible to stamp out ambiguity completely. BUT that doesn't mean you shouldn't try and you can probably be 99% effective

[ember cedar]

100%

[south lance]

I don't think player mods are the solution though. People who have stakes inside the game are biased.

[ember cedar]

that was a tangent. (I don't think the idea is as bad as people make it out to be within the structure I laid out, but that's a "I don't like me/others being wrong" thing and is off topic.) When it comes to clarity of rules and such I am in full agreement even if it is accompanied with zero enforcement of any type

[neon vale]

Whew. That was a Read. Sending Positive Vibes your way readers.

The obvious solution: We become a Hive-mind, thus eliminating all conflict.

Seriously though. The root problem is freedom. The more we have, the more conflict can occur. The empire system adds an active element to accelerate the creativity for these conflicts, but even if we removed it or banished it into a shadow-realm map, human conflict would still create issues. This also complicates rule generation and enforcement. Authoritarian instanced cozy? Libertarian paving riots? shrugs Maybe ironic, but we'd need more Empire wars to potentially fund the moderation team to handle the problems empire wars create...

While I know specific problems are not meant for the table... I think they could help inform potential solutions (Just a bit hard to strip all that emotional baggage out of them!).

Hunting ground collateral damage: Current hand-wave solution is "Go elsewhere" which, while true, is surrendering to the disruption/ter, which feeds the PvP mentality we may want to disarm. Also adds burnout fuel, which I assume we all want to minimize. Sadly, I don't think there is an easy 'counter' solution without Hunting overhaul. If the 'blocking resources' rule is Gold from here on; Let hunting herds spawn points be claimable and respawn on claim. This will lead to many settlements fencing them in for ease of player use. Probably generate plenty of lockout cases, but would give good data if the 'locking ore cave/dungeons/benches/etc.' is viable. Instead of hunting herds being used as a pawn in empire wars/player conflicts (or simply deleted by a newbie claim), they have the opportunity to be preserved by cozy players.

Pavement bombing: Make remove paving easier/faster for an established claim(T3+). I believe someone(s) had this/similar idea earlier in the thread, but I lack the will to find and properly link/source/thank you properly. Maybe this feeds into the road ideas Voxel mentioned. I lean t3, because we know how easy it can be with decay to stockpile writs foundation kits. Tier 3 at least burns more resources for someone to go about 'griefing' a road or other currently unprotected landmark. Unsure about making this ability tier 4 settlement ability, as this could punish small groups/solos.

Once claims have the better permission system; might look into having the 'resource harvesting on claim tiles' removed from the default recruit (probably peeking in chests too, if claim chest contents become hidden data, like whispers). This would avoid the bad actor using the free claim join to rip away resources that owner may have wanted to keep, but did not think to fence in to protect it from claim members.

While having 'neutral' player mods sounds like it could be fun, that would add another power layer for players to try to exploit (EVE Online's CSM, for example). Who will watch the watchmen? We already have the BitCraft Partners role as a soft power in that vein. May as well use that as a 'soft moderation' tool first. At least those biases are mostly transparent due to the nature of streaming.

I'm hopeful for gameplay design solutions, rather than an expanded moderation enforcement team. Clearer guidelines/rules/enforcement will help, but doesn't eliminate the root cause of conflicts or the creative ways humans devise to evade or bend the rules. Hopefully that solution doesn't default to PvP, since that'll take away time and effort from PvE (Guess we'll see as the Empire Layer is developed). Freedom allows us to terraform. While I believe it was meant as a joke, taking away terraforming 'would' solve some issues, but we'd also lose freedom. shrugs

[summer musk]

i've been thinking about this and I think the problem lies in the fact that an act like griefing causes some really intense feelings. It's hard to take a game people play to come home and turn their brain off to and mix in those intense emotions like that

players typically like either one or the other, not both. expecting them to come to a game where experiencing both is a requirement is going to affect the game negatively imo

it would be one thing if the pvp aspect of griefing was optional and tied to the empire system, and I do enjoy both types of gameplay, but if forcing those two types of gameplay to mix is the direction this is going, I am not sure many players are going to enjoy it.

[summer musk]

Something else that concerns me is the thought that a dedicated group of players could go block off all of the spawns of a specific resource, ESPECIALLY mines. it wouldn't even take that long to go block off all of the T7 mines in a region, or all of the regions even, shortly after launch and either capitalize on the resource spawns or just prevent everyone from using them for the sake of trolling.

[vital hazel]

One problem here is that a Player can own an unlimited amount of Land. Limit it to a fixed amount of (possibly directly linked) tiles per player, this becomes impossible. People could also donate their tiles to a claims of their choosing. Thus populated towns can grow. This could supplement the existing claims system

[summer musk]

it wouldnt be impossible because a player could just buy alts

[vital hazel]

That is possible. But much more effort

[summer musk]

there is only one celetium mine on the left side of the world map

and 4 in total

i could do that in a few days tops

granted, yes players could go find the rocks themselves to smack, but it would go back to the issue of trying to mix a relaxing turn your brain off game with really intense feelings

i mean, tbh if it's still allowed next map wipe i might go do it myself and charge 1 million a head to get inside and tag the waypoint

[undone lynx]

People had outposts at those locations months ago

For exactly the reasons you describe.

Even if there isn't currently PvP in the physical kill your player character sense, there has always been economic PvP and that will absolutely never change.

[stray pivot]

just need a trial and jury system, players can make reports against players and chatlogs, jury is randomly selected from players who opt'd in from outside the region affected player. and can vote to punish them with jail time or not. Looking at Archeage's system obv you can get the whole picture from reports alone, unless they report the backstory as well. Defendant and jury can talk it out from there.

wiz i feel you disagree with anything i say, feels personal bud lol

[opaque umbra]

I feel like leaving moderation to players is a bad idea

Specifically because there’s always going to be conflict of interest

[summer musk]

not really, league of legends uses this system

i believe that was the game

just for chat stuff though

[ruby pasture]

I don't think Wiz disagrees with you here just because he doesn't like you, player moderation is unusual in mmos and it feels like an extreme measure that doesn't even tackle the original problem of the thread (uncertain/conflicting rules)

I mean, we already have actual employed moderators who give different rulings, I fear to imagine how that would look with players making the decisions

[ruby pasture]

The tribunal system has been shut down since 2014.
-# I really miss it 😅

[summer musk]

ahh good to know

im showing my age

[opaque umbra]

A system working for league doesn't mean it'll work here

[summer musk]

but it doesnt mean it wouldnt work

?

[opaque umbra]

Also like... I don't feel like we should look to league for any inspiration as to how to create and foster a friendly community