How will the game be moderated?

I'm a little concerned about how this game may or may not be moderated once it's released. It seems to me that there's a healthy amount of subjective policing that could go on in a multiplayer game where so many playing styles will converge.

I know in most games there's usually a terms of service that leaves the door wide open to GM's using their professional judgement to make calls on bannings and warnings. But I have to say that for the most part, if it's not illegal, or some form of cheating, I'd hope that the mentality of the customer service team would be to "play on" in almost all circumstances.

I'm personally planning to play with settings allowing for the maximum amount of PVP, and I guess I'm wondering where that line might be drawn once the game is released? In any multiplayer game it's a fairly important question to get answers to. But I think most players take the attitude that this won't impact them because they don't do anything that could be considered a problem. Which is really not a good way to think about subjective moderation. In this case, it doesn't matter at all what YOU think would be considered a problem. It only matters what the person moderating thinks.

 

Eventually they're going to have to hire full time GMs to do this. They can't rely on community moderation alone, especially as the player base grows over time.

 

Sure, but how should a game be moderated? I mean, say someone that's paid over 10k does something objectionable. How should it be determined that they get a warning or banned? Is it as simple as someone hits the report button?

It just seems to me that joe average customer service person shouldn't be making this decision. Because while it may keep a few people from creating more tickets for joe average to respond to, it's probably not going to end well for the overall game. In addition, does the girl that paid 10k get more of a pass than the girl that paid the minimum amount?

I'm hoping that this can be communicated publically prior to release because I honestly don't want to think about it again. It's kind of a killer to immersion.

 

I highly doubt that you're going to get a pass just because you pledged more. They will likely have guidelines that the GMs will use to handle customer service issues, be they full time employees of Portalarium or community GMs (if they even allow that). Just as with any system where anyone can report anything, they'll moderate that abuse as well. And regarding publishing guidelines beforehand, it'll likely be in that 20-page EULA you accept when you install or launch the game to go online. That's what I'm guessing will happen anyway.

 

Actually the EULA would be compleatly invalid in the case of kickstarter people. Look at the laws about them in eroupe where they are invalid because you don't get it until you get home, now apply it to something we didn't get till 2+ YEARS after we were asked to give the money and I think you will find that any court would throw it out

 

Yeah, it's kind of a slippery slope. Which begs the question, doesn't that make this game very hard to subjectively moderate? The traditional rules of MMO customer service where you just kick everyone around the moment they pop their head out of their gaming hole - I don't think that really applies here. At least not for the people that put the big money into the game during the original Kick Starter drive.

And for the people that put in money after Kickstarter, I don't believe there were any terms attached to that.

 

Let's not confuse the terms of service for using a product that you purchased vs donating your money to a project's creation. Which one are we talking about here? If you bought the product and aren't satisfied you can just get a refund. If we're referring to donating money, as Kickstarter is not a sales system and you aren't pre-ordering software, we aren't talking aobut the same thing. If you wish to contest the contract you have with Portalarium when you donated money to the project's creation, that's your prerogative.

 

Nope, ASIC conciders Kickstarter to be a product purchas NOT an investment because you don't recive equity or voting rights over the company. The knight level pledge is a PURCHAS which includes all the things listed there in.

 

Then you should ask for a refund?

 

I think the tricky part is that they're dealing with large sums of money here. So a lot of these people will actually have lawyers and the ability (money) to make real trouble if they're not happy.

I hope this leads to less subjective moderating in general.

 

I want to be there when they ban the guy that put 12k into this game and he asks for a refund. I wonder how long it's going to take for him to get his account unbanned? Maybe the moderator that banned him will have to wash his car for a year.

 

Its seems odd to me if ASIC or any other considers KS as purchase. On my opinion we have given our $ to an idea and the stuff we get as "thank you"/ gift.

Moderation part. I think you should be able to downvote someone (or add to ban list, for your self) so that you just dont see/cant interact with that person. As in "I dont want to play with that guy" - completely reasonable, you should not *have to* play with people you really dont want for ovious reasons. What comes to using exploits or glitches or anything like that, normal procedures should apply starting from warning and leading to mighty banhammer (from online play, you should still be able to play the game on sigleplayer offline, even if banned). Donation amout should not factor in the "judgement" - everyone of us is responsible for our choises.

 

I really dont follow this logic. It really should not matter how much you have "payed", exploiting and being jerk etc is a choice, you do it by choice. No one forces you to do it thus you should be accountable for your actions in online and in RL.

I dont know how you even should be getting refund. Can you get refund on donations (in US)? Because I dont think on any European country you get any possibility to get refund on donations - barring if the party that you donated to uses the funds to do something illegal.

 

I agree that if you're playing this game as social event, you should be able to ignore people and vote them out or whatever.

But if you're playing competitively, how does that work?

So I get PK'd by you, and now I don't want that to happen again so I use my magic ignore shield? Or my guild is getting owned all the time by your guild so I'll just ignore your guild and become better by default?

I really feel like the ability to just subjectively shut out people is not very healthy for roleplaying.

 

The world doesn't work like that.

What's going to happen is that someone paying $45 is going to get slapped around and ignored becuase it's easy and there's no risk to the company. But someone with the means to file a lawsuit (and anyone that put down 10k for this game is likely to qualify) is NOT going to be banned unless they're like actively hacking into customer accounts (and even then the company is going to want to have a ton of proof in case the thing goes to court).

Unfortunately, being a jerk is often a privledge for having a lot of money. That's the sad truth.

 

That would be interesting, but again, what are we talking about here? Refunding donations or refunding a product purchase? As far as I know, nobody has bought the game yet. Since this topic started off about moderating players in the game after it's gone live, then we have players who purchased the product for whatever amount they were charged. Backers who donated their money recieve the game as a reward and paid nothing, so get nothing as far as refunds go.

 

I have no idea, I'm not a lawyer.

I know how the world works though, and if someone paid a lot of money they can change all of what you just said around and go to court to argue about it. That alone will get their account perma not banned, imo.

 

Your right on this one, I am too biased to look this how I would use it. I would not block player from simply killing me, but being non RP jerk / spammer. But yeah basically you could not use this system to play competitively... or does it really matter? I can see the point someone wanting to be the best PK / PK guild and "ignore" system would somewhat twist it, possibly to great effect. I got no answer to this side of the dilemma

 

Yep, none of us are lawyers. And sure, anyone with money can attempt to do whatever they want. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll get their way. Will Portalarium simply back down because of threat of a lawsuit? Who knows?

 

Right, who knows? That's why I posted a thread about it asking that question.

Are you saying that Portalarium is somehow more honorable than most companies or are you saying that they're more insulated from the day to day corrupt practices of modern business? I'm sure they're all great people, but what leads you to believe that someone that's invested (use whatever term you like) 10k+ into this game is going to be treated the same as some random person that put down $45?

I believe it was the first chairman of the PCAOB that said one of the great failings of regulators was to "assume that management has integrity."