How to report, correct, bad playing?

Started by Outraged, June 23, 2003, 03:45:33 AM

Recently I saw someone, spam cook, store, get... (Im praying spamming and not triggers). A good many scores of roots. It was like...
get all.root bag; cook root; (wait for cooking to complete), put cooked root in 2.bag; cook root; repeat until you get to the point where you fish out another 5 or however many you can carry then cook them again. For Id say nearly an hour. Maybe a little less. But the way it appears its not a once in a time thing... and they've probably 'maxxed' their cook skill off this little thing.

So how do I report, or tell them to stop? Is OOC appropriate for this? For this case I just wished up, but I feel stupid wishing 'watch these people' or something, because Im sure that wastes the staff's time.

Any suggestions?

Send an e-mail to the mud account (mud@ginka.armageddon.org) with information such as:
* date it happened (if you can include your timezone then that helps)
* time it happened
* a log if you have it
* description of what happened
* your username and character's name (can't hurt ;))

Hmm... If they were JUST doing that yeah I'd report it how whats his name said.

I've done similar things but with alot of RP and mostly to the fact that I'm cooking more then one at a time. Also explains failing alot. :-p I was paying attention to THIS root and didn't get THAT root.

Doesn't sound like it's the case, but things like that could happen. I know I've spent nearly a full day cooking up roots... But that also was my characters 'sid/food/drink for the next week or so so it wasn't too bad.


Creeper
21sters Unite!

Well... there are a couple issues here, potentially.  For example, if the person is roasting all those roots for sid, then yeah he would have to do tons to get enough sid, because roots sell for 1-5 sid each.  If the person is independent, as in trying to earn a living for themselves, then I can see why the person may have thought it was needed in such quantity.

Also, if his failure rate was very high, again he may think he needs that quantity to get any decent sid from his effort, particularly depending on what type of roots they were.

So you can send in the cap and the IMMs, who likely know what to do, will take care of it, but I'd hope they contacted the other player to see what he said about it.

Well, now we have bug, typo, and idea commands that can be used with arguments, how about an RPnote command along the same lines?

Basically, if you see what you think is exceptionally good or bad RP'ing, you can RPnote the person with a comment, and if the imms feel like it, they can look at the logs.  The RPnote command, like the other commands, would timestamp and get the room that you did the command in.  So:

RPnote swarthy This guy has been crafting roots for 30 mins straight.

or

RPnote svelte I really found the last hour of RP with this person exceptional.

or even

RPnote bug-eyed Hey Sanvean, conversation we just has some relevance to the Autobot plot you are running, if you missed it.

Of course, maybe the imms would just prefer logs over this, since it is essentially just a note saying that the logs of that person, around that time, are relevant to something.
Evolution ends when stupidity is no longer fatal."

I can't believe you gave away the Autobot plotline.

I like the note idea, I'll see how hard that would be to implement.

In the meantime, yes, email the account if you think it's bad play. The case you mention does sound like at least pretty unexceptional play, since I'd expect someone spam-crafting to break it up with some emotes/conversation/thinks, etc.

Well, I see a couple things here that weren't addressed...commented on, kinda, but not really asked.  Was the spam-cooker (ew...that just sounds like someone's cooking something I don't want to be eating) RP'ing at the same time?  I mean, either about the cooking or to someone else...your character had to be there for you to know that this person was doing this.  Personally, I couldn't care less why he was roasting the roots, provided that there was an IC reason.

I'm not sure that I like that RPnote idea...I do, but I don't.  It would give people a way to communicate to the Imms about someone's roleplay, but it could also be used as a way to harass some unliked character's roleplay, no matter the quality.  Really, we don't know what else is going on from that player/character's point of view.  Some dude's sitting there cooking...but he's typing a think out every twenty seconds.  You're bored to hell hanging around the guy, but he's roleplaying his little heart out.  I can see that going either way...
Quote from: MalifaxisWe need to listen to spawnloser.
Quote from: Reiterationspawnloser knows all

Quote from: SpoonA magicker is kind of like a mousetrap, the fear is the cheese. But this cheese has an AK47.

I don't like the rpnote idea.

But only because having to e-mail the mud takes a bit more time and effort, which is a good thing since it means the person is actually at least somewhat strongly bothered, enough that they took the time and effort to log it and e-mail it to the mud.

And kinda like the handgun waiting period it gives them a bit of a chance to cool off and to think about it.

Where as an ingame rpnote command would mean many people would use it for minor annoyances or if peeved at the char, or if they just want to be an RP mudcop (staff job).


I can see it now, rpnote the skinny blonde elf here never uses punctuation.
rpnote X-D can't spell, I think thats bad rp (for those who it annoys so much)
rpnote So and so can only type 30wpm but always has to use 3 line emotes, can we do something about that.
rpnote so and so just ran from me when I was trying to kill him, very unrealistic.

ETC ETC
A gaunt, yellow-skinned gith shrieks in fear, and hauls ass.
Lizzie:
If you -want- me to think that your character is a hybrid of a black kryl and a white push-broom shaped like a penis, then you've done a great job

I don't like the rpnote idea either.  Any situation where it might be useful can be handled in other ways, as X-D suggested.  Also, if the rp is good or bad enough that it needs to be commented on, it probably also calls for a log of some kind.  Not that I think a command like this would necessarily be abused, but it could.  Even abuse aside, there's the potential for staff to have to sort through a lot of unnecessary praise/criticism based on people's differing standards of rp.  I think in general, the command would generate more fluff than useful feedback.
quote="Larrath"]"On the 5th day of the Ascending Sun, in the Month of Whira's Very Annoying And Nearly Unreachable Itch, Lord Templar Mha Dceks set the Barrel on fire. The fire was hot".[/quote]

Quote from: "Outraged"Recently I saw someone, spam cook, store, get...

For Id say nearly an hour. Maybe a little less. But the way it appears its not a once in a time thing... and they've probably 'maxxed' their cook skill off this little thing.

No, they didn't.  You will advance more slowly cooking all your roots in a row for X minutes than you would if you spread it out more.  If they were just trying to max out their skills they would forage for one root, cook it at a "campfire" in their foraging location, maybe do a few other skills they can do alone like search, scan, listen, hunt, peek, steal once each, and shoot a single arrow at the vestric in the next room or carve an incense burner.  Then they would forage another root and start the sequence again.  There is a maximum speed at which any particular skill can be improved, based on your wisdom and stuff, and doing it more often than that rate will not help you "max out" any faster.

So, either the person was ignorant, or they weren't spam crafting with the intent of maxing out thier cooking skill at the fastest possible rate.  It may be that they were spending an IC day cooking for IC reasons.


QuoteSo how do I report, or tell them to stop? Is OOC appropriate for this?

No!  You are niether their mommy nor a staff member, so it would be completely inappropriate for you to break character to chastise them for what you percieve to be poor play.  

What possible good could it do?  What are the chances that you will correct them with a single OOC message, they will respond with "OOC You are right, I'm sorry" and the situation will stop there.  Slim to none.  It will almost certainly blow up into a protracted OOC discusion as each of you expresses your opinion on the subject.  In my opinion an OOC discusion does considerably more harm to the environment than spam cooking does, spam cooking may be OOCly motivated but OOC discusions are always, by definition, OOC.  OOCing to "correct" another player will create hard feelings, potentially bother even more players, and probably won't do any good anyway.

For example, when I had only been playing for a few months one of my characters got a job working for another character.  Her boss told her to go buy him some gloves.  As part of the ongoing scene I emoted something very like "Looks intently at %boss hands, trying to gauge the size."  Definately a borderline emote, in context most people could probably guess that she was sizing the hands, but then again they might not.  He went OOC to very politely tell me that it was an inappropriate way to emote.  Not wanting to prolong the OOC I OOCed something like "ok" and we got on with things.  Did it make me a better roleplayer or a better emoter?  No.  It just encouraged me to emote less.  If I can't quickly find a non-subjective way of phrasing an emote, then I don't emote at all.  I'd rather let the  coded echos do the work do the work than have an anxiety attack trying to think of the perfect emote.

Going OOC to "correct" someone elses roleplay is more likely to elicit "Who the hell do you think you are?" than "My God, you're right!  Thank you so much for pointing out the error of my ways."  It is just wrong.




For this case I just wished up, but I feel stupid wishing 'watch these people' or something, because Im sure that wastes the staff's time.

QuoteAny suggestions?

Like Sanvean said, email a log and let the staff make the call.

Myself, I break potential "bad" playing into catagories based on how much harm it does, or how much of an unfair advatage it gives the player doing it.

    I consider OOCly motivated PKs to be the worst.  It ruins another player's fun for OOC reasons, and may _harm_ the plotlines the dead character was involved in.  

    As a very close second, excessive use of the OOC command.  Personally, I think this command should be saved for emergencies and used as sparingly as possible because it shatters the IC environment.  Using "whisper" or "talk" for OOC communications is just as bad as using the OOC command.

    Activities that give the player an unfair advangage over other players.  Things like using scripts or cliant based speedwalking to get you quickly from one area to another.  (Speedwalking not only prevents normal interaction, but it also gives you an unfair advantage verses theives and assassins that may be targetting you.)  

    Things that give your character an unfair advantage over other characters.  Excessive sparring, hunting, kicking, crafting, foraging, etc., done for the purpose of skill maxing.  They make you buff or rich faster than characters who are being played more realisticly.  


    Stuffing shop inventories.  Your all-day cooker might fall in here, because if he fills up the local grocer with roots no other character will be able to sell roots there until the next reboot.  When you fill a shop's inventory with any particular class of object you prevent the other characters who depend on that object from making a living.  Sure, ICly you want to sell all you can, but the 5 of each item limit is an OOC limit, so making exactly 5 spiral carved jasper incense burners, 5 flower carved jasper incense burners, 5 spiral carved marble incense burners, and so on could be construed as abusing OOC information.

    Failing to be expressive (emote, say, talk, think, etc.) for long periods of time, whether active or idle.  A character relying on coded echos, or one doing absolutely nothing for 30 minutes because their player is watching Pinky and the Brain, is dull to watch.  It doesn't do any significant harm, or give an unfair advantage, but it is dull and weak.

    Doing foolish things because the player is bored or tired OOC.  Usually this only hurts your own character, but sometimes it can have a ripple affect on other characters, players and staff.  Breaking the IC rules of your clan to do a little hunting in the wastes or the 'rinth, trying to "mount mekillot" with your 3 hour pickpocket, or doing any silly thing because what the hell, if the character dies you can just make a new one.

    Failing to understand the environment.  Having a character that has grown up in a God-king city and knows of no other form of government, yet mouths off to Templars, teasing Templars or militia or nobles, espousing democracy or the equality of all people, etc.  I'm not saying there are no people in Zalanthas who would do these things, but you should have an exceptional reason to go against the cultural norms.

Chill.  It isn't worth getting outraged over.  If you don't like the way someone else plays, don't play with them.  If you need to, email the mud and let the staff handle it.

Angela Christine
Treat the other man's faith gently; it is all he has to believe with."     Henry S. Haskins

Oy. I agree about the trouble with playing a char realistically. I've had a few chars that were in those military training type situations and I emoted them alot and it usually ended up in my PC being way behind everyone else. It didn't bother me too much but on some level OOCly I felt a wee bit cheated  :P  That's ok though, its more satisfying to know you RPed true to yourself.

As for actually handling bad RP, I'd leave that up to the staff except in the most extreme circumstances. If some PC ends up PKing you without emoting or saying anything, then yah... I'd consider that reportable. That sort of thing is pointless and robs the victim of the cool death RP scene which is usually quite fun. Beyond that most extreme of instances I'd leave weeding out inappropriate Code usage and RP violations to the staff. They do an excellent job and are far better equipped than any PC is for pointing out inconsistencies or errors.

El Pungito hath spoken.  8)

When I cooked, I used to spend my mornings breaking down ducks. About 100 each morning. I'd cut off the legs, then the wings. After that I'd detach the breast from the carcass. Repeat 99 times. Then peel the skin off 99 legs. Then I'd remove the sking and fat from each breast. It was not particularly interesting to watch. I didn't think anything of earth shattering import.  Dunno.

I am not as appalled as perhaps I should be. On the other hand, I never play crafters. I did that in real life and it wasn't very interesting.
Varak:You tell the mangy, pointy-eared gortok, in sirihish: "What, girl? You say the sorceror-king has fallen down the well?"
Ghardoan:A pitiful voice rises from the well below, "I've fallen and I can't get up..."

Oh, wait. Ducks have two legs. Still, you get the point.
Varak:You tell the mangy, pointy-eared gortok, in sirihish: "What, girl? You say the sorceror-king has fallen down the well?"
Ghardoan:A pitiful voice rises from the well below, "I've fallen and I can't get up..."

For the exact reason Barzalene mentioned is why I suggest leaving catching improper RP/code usage to the staff. There are a variety of things that a player does that a PC isn't going to be able to know about. i.e. think command, typos on commands, idletime, etc etc.

A lot of tasks are boring, repeatitive and completely mundane. This is where the think command comes in real handy. Gives you an excuse to emote too...

think Damn its hot out today.

think Wonder what happened to that wench last night...

emote grins to himself.

think I'll have to visit her soon.

emote doesn't seem to pay enough attention to what he's doing and cuts himself.

say Son of a kank-whore!

Fun, no?  8)

My question is... What was the guest doing... Sitting there watching someone "spam" craft for an hour and doing nothing? *sigh*

:-p Hehehe...

Just kidding really, but I've found out if someones doing something over and over again like that... I'll do something ICily, and normally they may still craft but they don't just sit there only crafting and the play along with you.


Creeper
21sters Unite!

Just a note on my idea, I think the point of it may have been missed.

The text in the command is only to say what it was about.  The key here is that it would timestamp the comment and attach it to a character.  This is a command that would say "The logs around this time, for this character, might be useful".  You are asking the staff to look at the game logs.  I can't think that they would be very pleased with people who used it for little things, and would probably remove it.

The problem with a player log (having been an imm elsewhere) it that as an immortal you never actually trust them, or at least, I never would.  You always check game logs instead.  Most player logs don't have a timestamp, or generally a relatively quick way of looking up your own logs, unless you have some nice search functionality and reasonably sized logs.

I just thought this would be a way around that.  Look at the timestamp, you know the character it was noted on, easy to look up logs.
Evolution ends when stupidity is no longer fatal."