Messages

46

Questions & Answers / Re: Punishments in cases of harassment

« on: July 30, 2013, 02:58:37 AM »

That's... Not necessarily true. I know of one offender who was caught at least three times that I am aware of.

Well, this might be the "Exception that proves the rule"

47

BM General Discussion / Re: Player Statistics

« on: July 30, 2013, 02:52:38 AM »

The graphs mean little by themselves, as it could be that 10000000000 people played 11 years ago, or 50 people played, and are all still playing. Both would mean entirely different things.
Percentages would work better.

"30% of players that started playing 11 years ago are still playing"

What Wolfang said.
When I first saw the graphic first thought was that this is not good for BM image. % will work better than numbers.
Also, I would turn the graphic to show it increasing. Looks better.

48

Questions & Answers / Re: Punishments in cases of harassment

« on: July 30, 2013, 02:48:52 AM »

My point is that I'm not sure if the message was sent, in this case or in other cases. Not sure if the judgement will avoid what started the harassment to happen again.

Harassment begins for one reason, to get something in general. In two cases I have followed here, it seems to me that those who were punished more were precisely those who were persecuted because the punishment for the defendants, who were harassing, were not enough to prevent them to get what they seemed to want IC.

Note that I say "seemed".

In the case of the players with multi-account, the account deletion will refrain them to make it again, because they know exactly what will happen.

In cases of harassment, way more difficult to analyze and judge, will the consequences avoid anyone to do the same again? Or will they think that having their account locked for 4 days Is worthy to do it?

Jaune, I am not persecuting anyone but I am really worried about this.
Two players left the game "allegedly" because of the harassment. For me this is a reason good enough to discuss deeper about the matter.

49

Magistrates Case Archive / Re: Use of Rumour and personal information on irc, in forums, ingame and other places like skype and

« on: July 29, 2013, 04:18:16 AM »

Reading that last answer, having read some posts IC, having read several messages on IRC, I realize that for some people, the punishment was unjust. For me, it was rather unfair. The punishment should have been greater for the damage done.
Accusing someone of being manipulating the game due to personal relationships, to convince other players to believe this lie, change the course of the game based on these allegations, it is serious and no matter what the punishment was, the damage is irreversible.
Siana has no more chance to promote themselves as a character. Laura will always be the one on which it is rumored that took advantage of a personal relationship to achieve results in the game.
Even if Alexandros wrote in big red letters that he was sorry it would not change. This is the big problem of baseless accusations: Once disseminated, can no longer be controlled. There will always be someone who will believe what was spoken.

50

Helpline / Re: Realm Banner help

« on: July 23, 2013, 02:55:09 PM »

http://pixlr.com/editor/

Can do it here, Jaune. Or I can do it for you

51

BM General Discussion / Re: Closing Islands ?

« on: July 23, 2013, 05:00:09 AM »

^This.
We know now what Tom likes. We need to work on that direction.

(But I still think knights need more activities).

52

BM General Discussion / Re: Closing Islands ?

« on: July 22, 2013, 09:16:15 PM »

I did not read the last posts so If I am saying something that was said recently I apologize.
I just don't want to lose what is in my mind (again).
I spend some time yesterday thinking about this and my conclusion is that no matter what we do we will have one problem left, even in smaller or reduced number of continents and this is that knights cant pretty much do nothing.
They can train units or themselves and I can tell, this almost make me leave the game.
If I were not at IRC, if I haven't talk daily with other people, I would had left after 3 month playing.

So, what I think we need is more activities for knights.
Does Tom have any plan for this? Does he agree with improving something like growing food for example?

53

Dwilight / Re: The Great Dwilight War:Niselur captures Zereth

« on: July 21, 2013, 10:51:22 PM »

In a serious medieval atmosphere, honor is just a word.

Shouldn't be the opposite?

54

BM General Discussion / Re: Image BM community gives to players via forums, it is horrible...

« on: July 21, 2013, 03:30:20 AM »

The problem with that, Miriam ICS, is that it puts a great deal of responsibility on everyone to do the right thing. I agree, in as far as I think people should do the right thing. But I am not so naive as to believe they always will, which is why we have systems to take over when the community fails to self-correct.

Whats wrong with great deal of responsibility? We are supposed to be responsible for how we interact with the other players.

Like I said earlier, this is exactly what I tried to do in the case of Menethil v. Atanamir. Keyword here is 'tried', because I failed miserably. It could be argued that I even did more harm than good, because without any authority to back up my plea for civility, my words were taken and intentionally misinterpreted by one party solely for the purpose of promoting their side of the case.

I doubt anyone could say anything in this specific case. Will be a long time before people forget this, if this will ever happen.

One could view the rash of recent cases as evidence of an inherent flaw in the system. This is not a new philosophical position, and, in many situations, not an entirely unjustified one either (especially where frivolous lawsuits are concerned; don't even get me started on the horrors of medical malpractice suits). But I do not think this is one of those situations.

The cases that have been brought up recently have all been valid complaints that were handled appropriately. The problem is not that the community was unable to self-correct before the cases became official; the problem is the community reaction after the cases became official.

I think it's natural to want to tear down the system and start over when something isn't working exactly the way it should. But we're all human beings (I hope), and we will all make mistakes sometime, and thus we need some regulations and policies to keep us in check before we allow our emotions command our decision-making.

I read this topic all over again to remember why we are talking about magistrates now and why I did the suggestion. It seems to many of us that the system need a change to be more effective. I am just trying to help on finding a solution, not trying to tear down all the system.
I am always very concerned about the responsibility that fall over the magistrates and the consequences of them being know players.

My experience in another game was that at some point, moderators and admins was allowed to create fake accounts due to harassment as consequence of what they did as mods.

55

BM General Discussion / Re: Closing Islands ?

« on: July 20, 2013, 05:29:55 PM »

One thing that I have been thinking is about a talk we had at IRC recently.
Someone (Delvin must remember who), suggested that, those who donate over x, could have the account locked for no deletion even if auto paused.
I really like this idea and believe that some old players would come back if they still could have the old account active.
Or maybe could be: if you donate for x month and / or if you played for 2 years non stop, you can guarantee your account will not be deleted for inactivity or any other reason.

Another suggestion would be to have the old players to be able to start differently than a new player.
New players need time to learn the game and get used to it. Old players want to do everything but they must act as a new one.

56

BM General Discussion / Re: Thank You

« on: July 20, 2013, 03:22:40 PM »

I second you in all you said.

57

BM General Discussion / Re: Image BM community gives to players via forums, it is horrible...

« on: July 20, 2013, 03:21:46 PM »

Again, that system was tried: anonymity protected the Magistrates, but it didn't actually make the system work better.

But protect them, and they should be protected so, we can try to do this and change other things. I am sure you know how easy it is to have someone extending his feelings against the character to the player itself.

I believe we should do what Lavigna said: Only people relevant to a case should be able to comment, only people who can actually add something to the case itself. Some cases would be easy, some will need a whole realm posting testimonies, but we will not have a lot of people posting their personal opinion about the matter.

What I can think about is:
- all cases open
- magistrates anonymous
- magistrates discuss in private if the case is valid or not and who are the persons involved
- x number of testimonies
- open verdict and conclusion
- no one is allowed to talk about this anymore

What worries me is that we shouldn't even have to have magistrates and cases. What Tom said is very true. If someone start to do something wrong, people around need to stop him/her right away. With big red letters. OOC in game, OOC in IRC and even OOC in PM here.

Look how many cases we have recently. This need to stop. That's why I think some cases shouldn't even go ahead.

58

BM General Discussion / Re: Image BM community gives to players via forums, it is horrible...

« on: July 19, 2013, 10:01:03 PM »

I see... Make sense for me, but at same time, exposing the magistrates is not good for their characters and even the players itself. I read already somewhere about how to make sure the magistrates are impartial.
Being anonymous, they would be protected.

59

Magistrates Case Archive / Re: Use of Rumour and personal information on irc, in forums, ingame and other places like skype and

« on: July 19, 2013, 09:49:42 PM »

Everyone have the right to complain, even the ones called "unsportish".

The fact that some still think that this event was not that bad, is a proof itself of how bad it was.
We lose one player. This is serious.
We might lose more. For some, the fun is gone forever. For many, the bad ambiance will last for long time.

60

BM General Discussion / Re: Image BM community gives to players via forums, it is horrible...

« on: July 19, 2013, 05:27:23 PM »

I did not understand exactly why Titans were replaced with magistrates and why Tom want it open to all but I always liked the system of the titans.
Maybe a mix of both would work better: all cases posted at forum but evidences and testimonies sent in PM and at the end the results and decision.