Getting time to let go

rocketdog · **Posted:** Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:47 pm

Mac_Fife

Your post is timely, I just received an email from Vicki at Cyan the griefer who changed one letter in his name and came back in game last night Has been removed again. Thank you Cyan and Vicki.

JWPlatt sorry!! :oops:

Nicoleleigh · **Posted:** Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:26 pm

Yes, Rocketdog, I heard your group was in the city standing guard.
Why didn't anyone use the ignore feature?
Are we to assume it is now your intention to stand with your "crew"
and wait for someone to say something out of line?
We sure need more of you.

Just wondering.

-Nicoleleigh-

Nalates · **Posted:** Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:43 pm

rocketdog wrote:

Nalates

When I first played "To D'ni" I just wanted to solve the puzzles and would have played the game even if it would have been a single player game. The ages were so beautiful and all I wanted to do is see what was around the next corner or in the next age. So for me a waiting period would have been no problem, but I understand the experience is different for each of us. So I guess the question is, is the game in itself enough to keep a newbie playing durring the waiting period?

I understand your concern and it is a legitimate concern. Can we pole newbies and get an answer to that question?

The good thing about the idea is the griefer would need to go through that waiting period over and over again if he comes back in with a new name, the newbie would only need to go through it once.

I too started Uru as a single player kid. Going MMO took some parent convincing. But, as other family members were playing going from single to MMO, it wasn't hard. But, there is a difference between the beginning days of Uru and today. I never expected Uru to be multiplayer. There weren't that many MMO's. Myst games had always been single player and that is what I was expecting. New players today are expecting an MMO to be inhabited and I think many have expectations far different than ours in the early days of Uru. So, I think today any delay in getting people together in an MMO is going to hurt player retention far more than it did when Uru was a new thing.

Is the game good enough to hold new players? I'm not sure it is today. In its day it held us. The game is the same but the audience has changed. Coming in expecting an MMO leads one to different expectations than we had. I do think it very important that new players meet established players as soon as possible. The data in the Teng & Adamic study is highly convincing that player-to-player interaction is the most effective metric influencing player retention.

I agree with you that forcing griefers to repeat a long and tedious path to reach people they can grief would probably be effective. But, with an open source client, it is likely just a matter of time until someone programs a client that automates that process and distributes the client. We might be able to combat that, but someone would have to build some randomness into the game play, like combinations that change for each player based on some algorithm... but, that makes it hard to do walk-thru and support pages... and the algorithm is going to be open source too...

We have a whole set of long threads here and at OpenUru.org on how to change Uru play so we get players together earlier in the game play. To place obstacles in front of new players that delay meeting in game defeats those ideas.

As player-to-player interaction is so important to player retention I think the idea of delaying interaction would do more harm in the name of eliminating griefers than just leaving the griefers in game.

I much prefer a one time fee, which forces people to reveal a RL ID, which can then be blocked for bad guys. Would $0.50 pay for the signup changes and maintain the service? $0.10? Would small fees stop many legitimate players? I don't think so, but I do believe some percentage of people would be put off by any fee. I don't see how to get a handle on those numbers without actually trying it.

Plus,would a small fee then kill of the donations? I think it would have some impact. There are those that would think, I paid my 10¢ why donate? But, in what number? Would fees generate more or less than donations? Again I think we would have to try and see what happens as opinions on the points are just opinions. Cyan would have to make some call on what they think the numbers would be and decide go or no go with such and experiment.

ChloeRhodes · **Joined:** Wed Apr 11, 2007 3:29 am **Posts:** 520

Nalates wrote:

I much prefer a one time fee, which forces people to reveal a RL ID, which can then be blocked for bad guys. Would $0.50 pay for the signup changes and maintain the service? $0.10? Would small fees stop many legitimate players? I don't think so, but I do believe some percentage of people would be put off by any fee. I don't see how to get a handle on those numbers without actually trying it.

Plus,would a small fee then kill of the donations? I think it would have some impact. There are those that would think, I paid my 10¢ why donate? But, in what number? Would fees generate more or less than donations? Again I think we would have to try and see what happens as opinions on the points are just opinions. Cyan would have to make some call on what they think the numbers would be and decide go or no go with such and experiment.

Chogon wrote:

As far as charging a fee to access MOULa - there are a number of logistic and legal problems that would inhibit that, so effectively that is not an option.

Original Post.

rocketdog · **Posted:** Tue Jul 22, 2014 12:34 am

Nicoleleigh,

No that's not why we are going into the city. The reason we decided to start going into the city again was to try to bring life back into the city during the time we are on. It seems there has been very few people in the city lately and we thought if people go into the city and see others standing there then maybe they would stay and visit. And they are staying and talking. This is something Teodori has been wanting us to do for some time so we thought we would try it.

I and my friends don't want to deal with griefers anymore then other do. But the griefers give us no choice. I go into uru live to talk to my friends that I have met over the years not to deal with griefers. But I wont stand by and watch griefers rune it for others and push newbies out of the game. I said at the beginning of this post I don't know how much longer I will be around if things don't change, So we will see if anything becomes of this new interest in finding an answer or not.

I hope everyone will help until then. If you see a griefer or someone tells you of a griefer get whatever information on them you can and email it to [email protected], Vicki has been great to work with.

We all start a log file (/startlog) whenever we go into the city so we have backup files. The girls in the group know to be ready to take screenshots as well for added proof. It was a screenshot that got this last griefer kicked in fact.

rocketdog · **Posted:** Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:02 am

Nalates,

Wow! Great perspective on that. I guess I would have to agree with you now that you put it that way. This is the problem that this subject has always run into, there probably is no perfect solution to the problem which has of course been said before. I wish that each Idea could be discuses to its conclusion and then the most likely to succeed could be tried if that doesn't work then try the second most likely to work, or a combination of more then one.

This is the problem I'm running into putting together a list of ideas for JWPlatt there are so many combinations that I think it could take months to do, and I just don't have that kind of time. Just giving the idea without giving the good and bad of the idea will leave the reader to figure out all the things that the uru live community as a hole have thought of good and bad, for and against.

Annabelle · **Posted:** Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:18 am

ChloeRhodes wrote:

I really think the best alternative is to keep reporting the individual, placing them on ignore until the "Enhanced Ignore" or some other feature is implemented. I know its tempting to ask others to boot the person off but please keep in mind that this is Cyan's server, it is their job to do the "booting" so to speak and if they choose to allow someone else(s) to do it in their place, that is their prerogative. I know that no one has suggested we do such a thing without Cyan's approval, but I think a friendly reminder that we shouldn't, out of respect for Cyan's authority over their own shard is in order.

Of all the last 20 posts or so, that's the most clever one.

Booting off someone of the game is going against Cyan's rule. They generously granted us access to their shard using Internal Clients (that's the only shard to do so BTW...) but we cannot use them to become Gods.

Something that can be done also is to announce your defense actions right here. I hardly get annoyed online simply because I made several announcements in the past on this forum and elsewhere that: "I'm recording every single chatline when online"

You might say that griefers don't know that fact, I wouldn't be so sure. I find that this is a relatively small community and the griefers are surely also reading this forum board. Knowing that my politic against griefing is : "No fault", people are aware and mostly are afraid. I'm not griefed at all.

I remember one day a buddy who made a typo that had a whole new "meaning", he excused himself twice when he discovered what he wrote. It was ok, I knew from the situation.

It might seem over-protective, I lived my share of griefing in the past, login off panicked or crying for hours, that's enough!

AdamJohnso · **Posted:** Tue Jul 22, 2014 4:31 am

Mutual Ignore is implemented and appears to be working as intended on black-box Cyan (ie MOULa) and DirtSand based shards. More rigorous testing is pending on our internal Gehn Beta process...

rocketdog · **Posted:** Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:34 pm

AdamJohnso

That's great news!!!! Can you please keep us all informed about that. I will gladly volunteer if they need testers. Is there a place that we can go for updates on the progress of Mutual Ignore?

The griefer was back again last night he added three words in front of his name. I sent in another email to Vicki at Cyan.

I forgot to tell you all I tried something different last night, a little experiment on the griefer to test invisibility. There were about 10 of us in a circle standing by the tent in the city. The griefer cannot speak or type English well so he never talks but will type. So when he came over and started the usual walking through us and typing insults, it dawned on me, if we all turned off our monitors it would be much like invisibility. So in both voice and chat, so he would hear, I asked everyone in the circle to turn off their monitors and I said "his pleasure is in bothering others if we all turn off our monitors he becomes a nonentity with no pleasure." "Two of the other players said that's a good idea mine is off." I kept my monitor on and watched his reaction. He came after my avatar stood inside me jumped up and down ran in circles for about 10 minutes and then typed "I wish someone would tell him what I'm doing." No one responded of course, he jumped up and down for about 1 more minute and then typed "I'm sick of this" and logged out.

I'm sure Invisibility will stop the problem if the programming can be done.

AlanD · **Posted:** Tue Jul 22, 2014 7:09 pm

I'm quite sure this is not new advice, but the only thing that will stop griefers and trolls in general is to ignore them completely. Simply behave as if they were not there. It is a very sad state of affairs, but there are individuals who crave attention and can only seem to get it by spoiling other people's enjoyment. It is tempting to try to help these poor souls to reform, but unless you are a skilled mental health professional (and I for one am not) then there is no way we can do that - they are a lost cause as far as we are concerned. Complete shunning, no response to any provocation, is the only tool we have in our arsenal, and it is not fast-acting, but does work.

If their behaviour is so provocative as to stimulate you to react anyway, then turning off the monitor, or playing windowed and going somewhere else, is the best way out. But that leaves newbies at the mercy of these animals. So strong-minded regulars who can ignore the dreck and help new players are going to be very valuable.

I'm not exactly sure how well I can cope, it will depend on the nature of the provocation. But I'm old and ugly enough to have some defenses. This thread has helped me to consider coming back to the cavern more regularly. I hope it can help.

Nicoleleigh · **Posted:** Wed Jul 23, 2014 12:29 am

Very true Alan.
If you see anyone or anything you don't want
to hear or see, put them on ignore.
Standing in other avatars is childish and silly.
Let them do it. After they find out they can't
talk to you or see/hear what you are saying,
they will eventually leave.
If you see a new player, take them under your
wing and tell them that they may encounter
"bad" people and tell them about the ignore button.
Also, the natural thing that some people do is lash
out when people lash out at them.
I have seen many griefers and I have seen many.
Some are worse than others.
I have always used the ignore feature and within
a short time, they leave.
Provoking players and making them uncomfortable
in the game is disastrous on both sides.
People get mad at each other and they get defensive.
So......keep yourself from having a heart attack, put
them on ignore. As for "young" players, help them.
With so many avatars changing there names now, I
really don't know who is who anymore.
We are suppose to have fun in the game. Ignore the
bad ones as you do in real life.
Enjoy what is there. A lot of us don't want a gestapo
running around. The majority of the players are adults.
One of the main things to teach a new player, old or young,
is the ignore feature. This will all pass, if you atleat try.

-Nicoleleigh-

Tor'i · **Joined:** Mon May 08, 2006 10:17 pm **Posts:** 210

This discussion seems to have ended in a positive way, so I feel it is time to lock it.

There have been many valuable comments made in this discussion that offer up good ideas for improvement to the current methods available to handle the griefer situation. Until we have another means implemented in MOULa we have to work with what we currently have available to us. And... that is to use the ignore feature that is currently in the game and then report this behavior to us if it happens to you, and encourage others to do the same if it happens to them. If we don't know about it, we can't take care of it.

Several of you brought this up during the discussion and I will reiterate it here... A support ticket can be submitted at support.cyan.com or, you can email support directly at [email protected]. All we need is the offenders avatar name & KI#, a brief description of what transpired, and any supporting documentation of the offense (chat log and/or screenshots).

And, as a reminder to all, debating a subject is great (a lot of valuable information comes about this way), but pointed comments to other forum members and masking personal attacks during any discussion, is not ok. We all want to make MOULa a safe place. So please, keep it civil.

Thanks everyone, for your input!

Tor'i

Getting time to let go

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