How will the game be moderated?

No risk in what? The "who knows" question is in regards to what Portalarium would do in response to a legal threat because some punk got banned. Ok, so that punk has some money. So what? Do you think the executive officers named in the lawsuit -- i.e., the principal investors in the company who put down $10M+ in the company so far are going to back down or be bought off by someone who put in a puny few thousand? Would you?

Besides, I wasn't trying to "win" any argument. I thought we were discussing how the game might be moderated, not speculate on how corrupt the moderators or devs / company might be.

 

If they didn't do anything illegal, or otherwise threatening to the core stability of the game (including technical and social), I wouldn't be moderating them in the first place. But if it got to that point and one of my customer service staff banned someone for whatever might fall outside of that? For example the player became ultra powerful and was impossing his/her will on other players. Or lets say that player was just bothering random people. Yes, I'd back down in a heartbeat if I was trying to run a business.

If you owned a McDonald's and there was some guy that showed up and bothered all your customers you'd kick him out right? But what if that guy was married to the mayor of the city? Maybe you'd just have a conversation with him and give him some free food. Again, the world - it works in ways we don't always enjoy.

 

No, if they're being disruptive and can't be calmed / talked down and stop misbehaving, then they're out regardless. Plus, there would be cameras in McDonalds and the mayor would be embarrased as that video is shown repeatedly by the news media.

 

I didn't say they were being disruptive and couldn't be calmed, I said they were bothering customers. That could be a very minor thing that also doesn't translate well to the video camera. Or it might actually make the mayor's husband look good and might make your decision to bounce him look even worse and heavy handed causing people to stop eating at your establishment.

I didn't accuse anyone of anything. You know that, but now you're just stirring it up. I think that's obvious to anyone that is reading this thread. In fact, how do you accuse someone of events that haven't even happened? Wow.

I'll say this, I will PREDICT that it DOES happen. But that's totally different than accusing someone, or FUD.

I want to be clear on the subject of impact here. I don't know how much Portalarium has in funding. If you say it's 10 million we can use that number. I read some of their press releases though and it doesn't look to me like any of that would goto SotA. Which is one reason that RG is probably dealing with the 2.7 million listed on the home page.

So sure, 10k isn't anything if you have 2.7 million right? But when this game is released that 2.7 million is going to be gone. They're going to be working off new revenue. The thought of 10k here or there is still nothing, but it's not how you run a good business. You don't bake into the cake that you're going to be giving out 10k refunds on a regular basis just because a few players don't like the style of play of someone.

I mean, what would someone have to do to get banned from this game? That's really what the point of this thread is.

The secondary concern would be that people paying the minimum would not get the same treatment as those paying the maximum.

 

I guess we have different defintions of disruptive. To me, bothering other customers is disruptive.

You're right, as accuse is a harsh word, so I do take that back. But I didn't bring up that topic about integrity.

Until guidelines are posted, we can only speculate what would be a bannable offense, but I'd imagine it would be fairly similar to most online games. We can only take a look at the TOS of this forum for direction on that.

But to your point about ensuring equality in treatment by moderators, one way to do it would be to follow proper controls around sensitive customer information. Perhaps the moderators should not have the ability to know what level the player backed the game at. All they would know is some basic info about their account to assist with customer service issues as it relates to the game and not account management. They wouldn't know if the player with the castle got it via a pledge or bought it using in-game money. Not sure how realistic that would be, but it's just an idea.

 

What I would personally recommend, from a decent amount of experience, if on a smaller scale..

A fairly sizable team of trusted community volunteers, who can act as a sort of 'first responder' team. When someone pages or reports an issue, these are the people who go out to find out what the problem is. If it's a simple fix (I'm stuck, my bag vanished under the ground, yadda yadda) they take care of it. Their function is mainly either simple technical fixes, or report writing so that the next level up actually has some idea of what's going on (your average gamer is no good whatsoever at writing understandable problem reports lol).

The next step up is either another rank of very trusted volunteers, or paid folks. They are the first ones with actual decision making abilities, and capable of solving basic interpersonal disputes and issues, or more complicated technical glitches (my +10 sword of infinity and beyond from the add on store just poofed due to a glitch, etc.) However, they are unable to enforce more than a temporary "cool down" ban. If the situation is too severe, or it is dealing with a chronic troublemaker, it gets bumped up the line.

Next come the proper Portalarium employees... FireLotus, Rustic Dragon, etc. (No idea if there will be more folks on their level once the game goes live or not.) If necessary, they can obviously go all the way up the line to RG if the situation is severe enough. They are the only ones capable of enforcing a permanent game ban.


By this reasoning, your miscreant LotM backer would not so much 'get a pass' as he would get bumped up to the big boys to get a ruling.

 

I like that thought process. I can see management saying "that's our control, our customer service people can't tell who paid what" but I would say the control design is ineffective because, as you correctly stated, it's obvious to anyone paying attention that the guy with the castle is not joe average and therefore might "deserve" special treatment. Even if that player might have paid nothing at all and been given the castle as a gift or simply found the deed on a mob, the implication would be that the person might be special.

Even if we blocked out all information and only sent the report logs to the customer service person, that's only a partial fix. I would think that some of that information in the report might give it away. "The Duke Snortbreath is up in his city tower calling me horrible names and he won't stop!" Plus, how do you observe someone that "won't stop" if you can't really get into the game or view logs?

In addition, any customer support will likely have an escalation procedure, and so now you have to limit a supervisors access too? Even that would probably be ineffective because ultimately the escalation process would funnel up to one person that would make the decision if player X was just not worth having around anymore. I could definately see that decision being based in part on how much money the person was putting into the game. I mean there would probably be a conversation that went like this "So you're telling me that you want to perma ban player X, the guy who's put 14k into this game over the last year? What's he done, called someone names? Has this person ever been on the internet before? Seriously, we may ban the person that reported this just for being so stupid."

Of course, if you make your policy free from that expectation, then you don't have that problem becuase when it gets reported your CS staff just says "Thank you for your message. The terms of service do not currently cover 'repeated horrible name calling'. If it were a racial slur, or it was profanity, that would be against the terms of service and not tolerated. Our logs show that this was not the case. Have a good day."

 

To put it plainly, no one really knows yet because, as far as we're aware, no one has really discussed the issue yet publically. I'm sure there will be in game rules; obviously things like blatant racism won't be acceptable, but until Chris or whoever makes a press release about it, we're all pretty much in the dark on the topic.

As far as the favouritism based on pledged money, that won't happen. I won't speak for administrators on the issue but I think it's pretty obvious. Everyone who signs up to this website or who will log into the game has to agree to a terms of service, part of which is agreeing to obey the rules created by administration. Failure to listen to those rules can end up in temp bans or full bans and no refund should be given because you willingly and knowingly broke the rules on your own free will. Just because someone donates $10,000 doesn't mean they are any less liable for their behavhiour than the person who only donated $25.

Again, I'm not speaking for Portalarium, but this is the way it should be in my opinion.

 

Right, and I think that makes sense from a business standpoint.

But from a player "is this fair" standpoint I think it falls down quickly. So joe average, is RG going to hear his case out? Or because he only paid $45, is he going to be decided on by someone else? I can't believe that RG will look at every case (again that makes sense) but I can honestly see RG seeing every HIGH VALUE case.

That's where the fairness thing comes in.

 

I can't see him being involved in any of these types of disputes and find it odd that a customer would feel the need for RG to be involved.

 

Have you not seen all of the Madonnas here?

Speaking as someone who has put under $200 dollars into SotA now, if someone who has put 10,000 into SotA gets a little more consideration from Devs then I think that is fair.

The world has not been created for equals, the economics of funding this game were not based upon equality either. There is no surprise, and this should be accepted without question.

 

The forum has been an example of such moderating on the part of Portalarium. I don't think anyone has gotten a free pass based on how much they've pledged - if they've posted something insulting then they've gotten a warning or more. Plus, the dev+ forum is something people paid for in KS. Don't know why it would be much different, just on a bigger scale.

Also, I'm sure all the other big MMO's have dealt with this and I've never heard of lawsuits or protests or such.... have there been any?

 

Expecting RG to get involved just so they can feel like they have a personal connection is way beyond "a little more consideration from the Devs". RG is on the board of a few companies and I'm sure some of the prices customers pay for those are beyond 10k. Is RG expected to get involved in every tiny, childish squable in all of the organizations he an executive of? I can't imagine he wants to.

 

You are right.

But I think the Captain has a point in that some people's expectations don't match reality... Just because it's unrealistic doesn't mean some won't expect it - there have been posts in this forum where people have asked RG to respond directly to them.

Also, there are perks to being a LoTM, and there is some RG connection there. So the Captain has another point in that unrealistic expectations can be more realistic if you pledge more money.

 

There's a big difference in personal connections over the fun stuff invovled in making a game. Expecting more due to your own poor behavior is just plain rude no matter how much money you put on the table.

Let's look at this another way. Richard comes off as a stand up guy from what I've seen. Do you think he has history of poor behavior in his personal life? How about in any personal online aspects? He may, but he seems too mature, respectable and responsible for that. I don't think he's ever found good behavior difficult to achieve at any point in his life so I would imagine he expects the same from everyone single adult here no matter how much money they've contributed. I think he's genuinly happy to speak with his customers, but I also think he puts things in perspective and draws lines. Lines that he doesn't define, because as adults we should have already learned them. In fact this learning process goes all the way back to kindergarten. I'm willing to bet that Richard feels that if you're an adult and you haven't figured all this out by now, you aren't ever going to. So any involvement in silly squables that don't require an executives attention is something you don't deserve.

Maybe I'm completely wrong here, but I can't imagine he would want to get involed in small disputes that stem from a game that he is trying to make fun. How does Portalarium benefit by catering to a 10k child when he/she is only a drop in the bucket of all the money that has been given?

 

Nope, you totally nailed it.

 

I can. I could see him getting a report on anyone at a $1600 level (just for example) or above going to him on a periodic basis. I can even see him making the final call. I would be surprised if this happened a lot, but from a design standpoint, you'd want to know why people were getting banned. Everyone else would be a number, the high dollar accounts would go all the way to the top in a small operation like this.

Of course, it could be that Chris or Dallas is the final say and they just report to RG monthly. Who knows? But it's going to be something like this if it's anything like a standard business.

 

Sure. But RG has also proven that he will constantly challenge himself to see many sides to an issue. What may seem like a slam dunk to some people, Richard may see a design flaw and change the entire way he does business. Think of the story with the macroing thief.

http://www.uo.com/article/Memorable-Moments-Richard-Garriot
Notice how he's answering customer service requests directly in the above story.

If you add into the equation that the offender is also a high paying customer, I think they're going to get a few chances to make good.

 

You just disproved your own point. I'd going to wager that the macroing theif didn't pay anything like $1600+ for UO. Richard is human, like the rest of us, and will be susceptible to errors in judgement, just like the rest of us. It is one thing to be concerned with certain backers getting favours but I think this thread has gone far beyond that.

What do you want us to say? Do you want the rest of us to admit that we're blind and only you see the truth of the matter? That RG wil give free passes to everyone that pledges $1600+ and let them ruin the game for everyone else? Ok, thank you for teaching us. Now we know. And that's the thread.

 

Jatvardur, I'm not sure you're following my logic all that well.

The macroing thief is ONE example that quite frankly shows us that RG handles situations like that far differently than other people probably would have. I know that if I found someone macroing in the same example, I personally (regardless of how much they paid) would just ban them for ruining the game. I don't care how much they said that they thought the design of the game "allowed" them to do it.

The take away from that story is to recognize the follows things:

1) RG really does care enough to take individual customer service requests. I'm certain that he'll continue to toy around with this from time to time just like he probably reads individual forums posts from time to time.
2) Most businesses that have paying accounts have systems where the highest value accounts are handled by the very top of the corporate structure. Meaning that on a periodic basis the accounts are reviewed to ensure that the company isn't ruining their business because they "trust" their day to day operations people to just handle everything correctly.
3) Most businesses treat high value accounts differently than they do low value accounts - because they're businesses.
4) Being a jerk is still being a jerk, and doing something minor is still doing something minor. So if you're a low value customer, I personally don't think you should get bossed around by day to day operations staff just because they can get away with it. I also don't think that if you're a high value customer you should get extra chances that a low value customer would not.
5) My suggestion is not so much to treat high and low value customers the same (because that doesn't make sense from a business standpoint) but instead to raise the bar for low value customers so that getting banned is far more OBJECTIVE than is traditionally allowed in MMO's. To accomplish this, I would suggest that the Terms of Service in the game be something like this:

A. No racial slurs or profanity.
B. No macroing, scripting, or hacking.
C. Nothing illegal.

That is all.

The reason the above three points are OBJECTIVE is because you can very clearly identify if someone has said a racial slur or used profanity in the chat logs. You can also tell if someone is macroing, scripting, or hacking in the server logs. Finally, if someone is doing something illegal, you're bound to stop that if you're aware of it anyway.

The types of rules that are NOT objective include things like "harrassment" and "being kind to others" and stuff that while understandably good things to promote, are not in any way objective enough to track or agree on what constitutes bad behaivor. You very quickly get into SUBJECTIVE moderation where "the intent of the terms of service has been violated". And so my point about the High Value people is that they will be able to find this subjectivity rather easily because they have money, and the low value people will not because they don't.