Anti-Clan Policy Discussion

[Indirik]

I don't think we need to worry about someone scripting messages to avoid being detected as a clan. That's a bit of paranoia, I think.

[Kellaine]

I have a simple question then.

what about Families that play together?  My wife, my step son and I all play BM and have for years.  My wife and I even have characters that are married in game.  We try to support each other but each of us has a distinct personality.  My character Jon Paul is married to my wife's character and has been for a very long time and though we support each other, we do as any family will have disagreements in game that can put us at odds with one another. for example her other character Zadek does not like Jon Paul, thinking he is an arrogant buffoon. (she is right about that too, he is or was long ago)  My character Sasha is their daughter in game as well. so we have legitimate in game reasons to support each other publicly.  And where my characters have little interest in power above ruling a region, hers have in the past aspired to bigger and greater things. 

We have been publicly accused of being clanners. Would our situation fall into the negative aspects of a clan or acceptable in game play.  We do our best not to ruin the fun for others in the game and mostly use it for RP purposes when Jon Paul and Katalynfae are in the same region. (as they rarely get to see each other as their duties keep them apart.)

My step sons characters he plays and votes as his heart decides. He mostly plays characters that do not get involved in politics and just follows orders. he gets on IRC as I do on occasion and refuses to get on the forums as he uses IRC to ask questions and get ideas on how to handle things in game from more experienced players than he.

together we have a total of 6 characters on EC and on Dwilight my wife is in a different realm than My character and my sons. Though we all tend to go in the same political circles in game, that is mostly IG politics and loyalties to in this case Lady Allison (Kabrinskia) on Dwilight. My son and I have strong loyalties to her and my wife is the Duchess of Aegir in Morek.  We all have separate goals and desires.

So I guess what I am asking is the type of "clan/family" ties that our characters have destructive to game play. I do not believe it is, but with all the discussion about it lately I need to know if we need to change how we are doing things.

Respectfully,

[Anaris]

what about Families that play together?

As long as it's not some 30-member extended family all playing together, there shouldn't be any problem.

[Kellaine]

Thanks that puts my mind to rest.

[Tom]

Yeah, we should add something to the effect of "a larger group of players" to the definition of a clan. I don't think anyone is worried about 3 or so people.

[Geronus]

Two things.

1. I think Tom has it right - we can rely on people reporting the type of behavior we are looking to discourage rather than going out and conducting witch hunts to look for it.

2. In the past I have been against attempting to criminalize 'clanning', if only because it is extremely difficult to define what exactly that term means in such a way that you can pass judgment. As Katyanna and GoldPanda have alluded to, many players have forged OOC connections with other players that they met through the game and many other players play with RL friends and family including myself, but most such players do not engage in the kind of activity that is the focus of this discussion.

I still have concerns about this. I think if we do add something like this to the social contract, the cases we get are going to be extremely divisive. Competing isn't a crime. Where do we draw the line between playing well and power gaming? This is very much going to be a case by case thing. There's no way we're going to be able to establish sufficiently precise criteria in advance. "We'll know it when we see it" is going to be what it comes down to. Such lack of clarity can and will contribute to making these cases more divisive however.

[Velax]

If - just a thought - the reaction to finding a clan were to randomly deport half of them to some randomly selected other game worlds, that clan's influence in the realm would be broken. If we are wrong and they weren't a clan after all, then nobody has lost a character, and while it's probably not something they will thank the Dev Team (or Magistrates or whatever) for, if you weren't in that realm because of your clan then finding yourself somewhere else isn't that horrible.

I hate clans more than most, but I disagree with this idea. I realise it's just a thought, but I don't believe being randomly teleported to another realm "isn't that horrible". My characters don't change realms much. I have a ruler in Arcaea who's been there for some 18 months, RL, worked his way up the ranks, made friends, enemies, etc. I would be extraordinarily pissed if I got teleported to some other realm and told, "Oh, sorry, you're not a clanner, we made a mistake, suck it up." If that were the punishment, I would want you to be very sure they're clanners first.

[Kellaine]

I hate clans more than most, but I disagree with this idea. I realise it's just a thought, but I don't believe being randomly teleported to another realm "isn't that horrible". My characters don't change realms much. I have a ruler in Arcaea who's been there for some 18 months, RL, worked his way up the ranks, made friends, enemies, etc. I would be extraordinarily pissed if I got teleported to some other realm and told, "Oh, sorry, you're not a clanner, we made a mistake, suck it up." If that were the punishment, I would want you to be very sure they're clanners first.

I have to agree.

[squirrel]

Yeah, we should add something to the effect of "a larger group of players" to the definition of a clan. I don't think anyone is worried about 3 or so people.

That depends. Three people with two characters apiece could easily control the government, dukedoms, and armies of a small or even medium-sized realm.

People who play in a group become a problem when they actively exclude others from that group. If you can't get a leadership position in your realm because you don't belong to the OOC cabal that runs everything, that's bad. But I'm not sure how exactly you'd distinguish that from the IC cabals that naturally form as people play together for years.

I'm not a fan of cliques and clans. But I would rather not see witch hunts against OOC clans, especially since accusations of clanning are so easy to abuse.

[Penchant]

if you weren't in that realm because of your clan then finding yourself somewhere else isn't that horrible.

There are some cases where it would be, if a realm in Dwilight was formed as a democracy there would be reason to want to go back there. Dwilight or any other island that you fancy for a certain reason might only have one or two realms that have something you really enjoy like being a republic or democracy. Darka has the whole realm being a mercenary thing, D'hara is a merchant republic etc. Realms usually have something that make different than others and thus you would want to be there.

[Tom]

I hate clans more than most, but I disagree with this idea. I realise it's just a thought, but I don't believe being randomly teleported to another realm "isn't that horrible".

First, you'd get deported to an island. The choice of realm is still yours.

Two, it is definitely better than losing the character, or the account, don't you agree?

Three, yes of course we'd only do it if we were sure. But even if we are sure, mistakes happen.

[Lorgan]

First, you'd get deported to an island. The choice of realm is still yours.

Two, it is definitely better than losing the character, or the account, don't you agree?

Three, yes of course we'd only do it if we were sure. But even if we are sure, mistakes happen.

How about the usual lightning bolts + barring all suspected clan members from positions and voting for a while? Then they aren't forced to leave their realm but still lose all political power.

[JPierreD]

There are three different matters we should differentiate:

1) Activity Levels:

I don't want to do that all over again. I don't care about losing characters, or losing a war in BM. I do care about losing a war when, as stated by Anaris before, clans have a 1.5x-2x advantage on your average realm.

That, to me at least, goes against the "Fair Play" section of the Social Contract.

Sorry, but this is basically you saying "Oh no! They are too many and too active, they should accommodate to our speed of playing!". Sorry, but they should not, if you want to play it slow and still win then go to the Colonies, in where there is only one turn per day, or advocate for a larger island with that pace. It makes as much sense that you have the same right to play at a slow pace than that you have the right to be extremely active. And this comes from someone who couldn't care less about the military aspect of the game.

If you don't have time to wage a war and win it then you should not be focusing on that, specially if you don't have enough nobles in your realm.

2) OoC Friendships:

My chars generally support these families because they know that the favor would be returned someday, without prompting, promises, or even a formal acknowledgement of mutual assistance.

No offense, but I personally consider this of poor taste. Not a crime, nor something that should be punished, but certainly something I would try to avoid. It makes one think all those characters are extensions of the player, without individual goals, dealing with extensions of the other players.

But that is also associated with the objective one has in mind. If what you seek is military and political victories with all of them, winning in general, then it makes sense. I try to have different levels of ambition and trustworthiness in my characters, and different goals. I would certainly not recommend a good friend of one character to necessarily trust the other, for they might find a nasty surprise. And that is one thing I like about BM's social game: the uncertainty.

3) Clans:

That depends. Three people with two characters apiece could easily control the government, dukedoms, and armies of a small or even medium-sized realm.

People who play in a group become a problem when they actively exclude others from that group. If you can't get a leadership position in your realm because you don't belong to the OOC cabal that runs everything, that's bad. But I'm not sure how exactly you'd distinguish that from the IC cabals that naturally form as people play together for years.

Indeed, there are two factors to consider, size of the group and level of OoC friendship.
A clan of only 3 players and 6 characters should not be a major concern, in my opinion. There are much worse IC cliques around. If six players decide to make six characters run around as the biggest buddies, I have no problem with that. It can be considered a clan, but it's of little impact. Why cannot RL friends not play together as friends IC? But if they decide to make all of their characters as the biggest buddies, in a short time in the game summing up between twelve and eighteen nobles that always share the same realms and work at a group level... Well, then they are creating problems, and should try to play with people outside their bubbles.

[Penchant]

2) OoC Friendships:

No offense, but I personally consider this of poor taste. Not a crime, nor something that should be punished, but certainly something I would try to avoid. It makes one think all those characters are extensions of the player, without individual goals, dealing with extensions of the other players.

But that is also associated with the objective one has in mind. If what you seek is military and political victories with all of them, winning in general, then it makes sense. I try to have different levels of ambition and trustworthiness in my characters, and different goals. I would certainly not recommend a good friend of one character to necessarily trust the other, for they might find a nasty surprise. And that is one thing I like about BM's social game: the uncertainty.

You should also clarify OOC friendships because the quote you talked about that player is not ooc friends with them but know the family will return the favor if he helped them. (Also not one character helped a family, and the family returned the favor on a different continent)

[Bedwyr]

Please note this quote:

By their behaviour. The Dev Team does have the tools available to make such a call once a potential group has been pointed out to us. We don't do any kind of automated checking, which I think is fine because unless a group has a noticeable impact on the game so someone asks us to look into it, there isn't a problem.

Tom has always been one to err on the side of caution, with good reason.  There aren't going to be automated anythings with regard to this.  Can we stop worrying about how to tell if there is a clan, when Tom's already said what will happen is that someone clues the Devs in, who will look at it, and tell him and/or the Magistrates/Titans whether the group qualifies based on the tools they have?

I'm for bolting/position removal if it's at the ruling clique stage (might happen if they have multiple realms, say).  That'll wake people up, and might get them to be inclusive with others in the same realm as they won't have any choice.  If we're talking about the majority of the people in the realm being part of a clan, then force-deporting makes sense, but not until then.