|
 An Editorial on Griefing by Ishtar of Atlantic | |
| Posted on Friday, February 1, 2008, 1:40 PM EST by El of LA (Editorials) |
This editorial is written by Ishtar of Atlantic shard, a seasoned reporter with a roleplayer's eye on UO playstyles. Read her very interesting editorial below on the subject of Griefing.
 Now all of us at one point or another have dealt with some form of griefing in one of its many ugly forms. With the large population, especially on a shard such as Atlantic, keeping it controlled is difficult. As time has gone on in game the scarcity of GM's had made this task even more difficult. How often does one get the typical automated response? This can be extremely frustrating when you add the long wait times into the equation. In the realm of Ultima Online I have found that griefing falls primarily into these categories: - What we know as exploits, bug exploitations and so on that constitutes as an abuse of the actual game mechanics.. -The intent of the action is meant to cause dissatisfaction of the game play of the intended victim, verbal (racial slurs and so forth) or physical (the luring of monster/releasing of pets with the intent of harming/killing of another player on the Trammel, Malas & Ilshenar facets).
-Impersonating of a guild/individual (this only applies to the roleplay community in my experience).
-The inability of the victim to exact some means of retribution beyond utilizing similar unintended game mechanics.* Regardless of the type of game play you enjoy in UO, whether you just hunt, run peerless or role play, griefing tends to be the constant black spot in the game. In the roleplay community this can add more stress to a character or guilds interaction. From events being interrupted to more minor infractions, it still creates what one would call "drama" within the community. Griefing, can be viewed as a form of harassment in the physical sense as well as verbal. Though per game mechanics tossing insults is not considering griefing, as long as it is not racially charged or in a manner that violates the rules of conduct. Per the roleplay community to go out of character and simple curse at people, especially to bait a conflict, would be just that. With the mechanics of warring and alliances, these action(s) do not just affect one individual, even if only one person is the intended target, but all the partis involved. These things are here for fun and enjoyment, and just one instance, even if just in a moment, it can be ruined for many. This is a nightmare to deal with for guild masters and those that are the victims of this action. Though many will say yes it is only a game, one must keep in mind that the person behind the player does have real feelings and those are still affected regardless. In the role play community, the majority of responsible GM's will handle this in an adult and professional manner. Sometimes even in the non roleplay community a guild master will handle it in the same fashion. However, there are always exceptions to such and it tends to lead to a war of sorts within the either community. In my years of playing I personally have experienced quite a few of these, including guild impersonation, which too this day only one responsible party has atoned for. Though that guild was eventually disbanded, it still did not resolve the situation and resulted in long term animosity, which to this day I still harbor ill feelings about and has created conflict with a guild master I respect and still wish we could have a more amicable relationship. Animosity, as the result of conflict stemmed from griefing in the roleplay community as well as those that are not, if left unchecked and without proper action, can lead to long time feuds that can have major impacts on relationships between guild and players down the road. For example, tit for tat actions, which I can admit I have been guilty of myself, resulted in a long term issues with another guild. Even though after time I realized it served no purpose and it was better to go along my merry way then keep going back and forth, as on my end it appeared resolved after a talking it out, thill has created a rift with both guilds. It may appear a simple solution would fix such an issue, but add stubbornness and strong personalities and that can go right out the window. I have seen a sincere apology fix many situations, yet sometimes getting one would be like pulling teeth from a shark's mouth. The role play community has an advantage with mediators available to resolve conflicts and disputes, which is a resource rarely used and tends to be overlooked as a positive option. Now, with that in mind, you would think the option would be used more often, sadly it is not. So how does one handle such rude interruptions of their game play? Well there are numerous trains of though in this regard from doing it back to just ignoring it. I recommend ignoring it and contacting the Guild master of the guild causing the issue. Doing it back has very bad results, that I can attest to from my own above admission. One can debate that ignoring such things could be considered the same as taking no action, but adding fuel to the fire so-to-speak, tends to lead to more issues down the line and makes it much harder to settle differences later on. In some circumstances the Guild Master of the offending guild, may be the person creating the problem. In that case, the "ignore button" serves a wondrous purpose here. Though, it may not stop the other party from picking objects up and so forth it can filter any taunting behavior and commentary. Unfortunately, that is about all the game mechanics allow to stop this as the GM's of Electronic Arts have come short in this department when they removed a lot of their programs over the past few years. To live grief free in Ultima Online would seem a near impossibility, but one has to make the most of their situation. The definition itself can be intangible at times, as what one may consider griefing may not be, for example removing rune stones and re-wording recruit books or throwing them away, by the rules set forth in the game are not considered griefing, but would walk a fine line in the role play community. The same would go for blocking common areas, not deemed griefing but rude, none the less. So perhaps, with this perspective in mind, a clear definition should be made as what is griefing in the role play community vs. the non role play community. Though these are only my thoughts, experiences and opinions, hopefully it will shed new light on something that puts a dark cloud on the world of Ultima Online for all.
-Ishtar-
*Taken from the Wiki definition of griefing. |
| [ Discuss This Article ] |
| VOICES Editorial: Community Management - Is It Really That Tough? | |
| Posted on Friday, September 28, 2007, 9:21 AM EDT by Joshua Rowan (Editorials) |
Another VOICES Editorial (OpEd Articles) for you to dig into and share your thoughts on! This one comes to us from Stratics' very own AutumnKiss: Community Management - Is It Really That Tough? Many times in our lives, we often find ourselves in a position to question another's abilities at their jobs. Whether it's the waitress in our favorite restaurant, the guy at the movie ticket counter, or the mechanic in the auto-repair shop. But what makes us think we have the knowledge or right to question them? Have we done their job? Is it mainly based on what we expect, regardless of what we do or do not know? Or maybe it's just human nature? Regardless of why, the fact exists that we are constantly questioning the abilities of others to do their jobs. And it's no different in an online community where people are put in positions of public relations, communications, moderation, etc. It's a known fact that when we don't have to look another in the eye, we're not as gentle as we would otherwise be with our words, sarcasm, and downright criticism. It's far more difficult to be mean and hurtful in person (well, for most people it is, anyway), than via text on some message board where you'll never have to face the other individual and see the hurt, anger or frustration in their eyes. Okay, yeah... I'm a girl, and that's my take on it. But really... am I so far off in my assessment of why we are more harsh online than we are in person? Let's talk about our online communities for a minute. I'm a gamer, and I've been involved in several online gaming communities over the years. Most are title-focused, like for Everquest II and The Sims Online, and others are made up of gamers that wish to speak more about day-to-day topics such as religion, politics, families/pets, and their favorite laundry soap. No matter what, though, it's real people being real with each other. "I try to understand the user's point of view. Something that the team perceives as a minor bug could be ruining someone's day. We do listen to feedback and we try to address as many concerns as we can. We have to balance this work with new content development though." ~Greg Wiatroski, Toontown And when the Community Manager, Public Relations Coordinator, Forum Administrator/Moderator, etc., doesn't perform as expected by one or all, the community is quick to jump on them. In some cases, I've seen community members demand that the Community Representative be forced to resign! In some rare cases, that may not be too far off the wall. For instance, in February of this year there was a rather large controversy involving EVE Online, wherein developers were accused of utilizing their Dev Powers in-game to further theirs and their friends' characters. While CCP acknowledged that there were some issues, which were addressed and corrected, the discussion was quick to turn awry from focusing on the issue to pointing fingers at who was really at fault. In one post, Kieron, Community Manager for EVE Online, stated: "In both cases, these accusations were recently brought forward when a player revealed the identity of numerous CCP employee characters. Since these play characters are known to belong to CCP employees, they will be removed from the game. Many of them have been around since the creation of EVE and it is most unfortunate that these developers are now forced to end their relationships with their in-game friends, but that is our policy when the anonymity of staff members has been compromised." Was that a fair response to players' concerns over developer misconduct? We may never know, as the community will only ever see half of the story (the other half being behind the scenes at CCP). The full community discussion can be found here, and an article by ShackNews on this topic can be found here. Read through it all and judge for yourself... was CCP right or wrong in their handling of the issue, and was the community fair in their assessments and demands for more information and action? Read what transpired and judge for yourself. Another high-profile issue involved Anarchy Online, and the wildly unpopular "Clan Bannings of 2006", wherin many Clans were banned for a variety of alleged misconducts. However, there was a very large outcry of "Foul!" by the player base on the topic, and one community member went so far as to create a YouTube video dedicated and addressed directly to FunCom about the unfair tactics used by whomever was responsible, including specifically addressing the issue and asking why: "Funcom we fought for those towers. You even wrongly banned clan leaders, even when they did NOTHING. Why would you do this?" The complete video can be found here. Watch and read the comments... then decide, was FunCom right or wrong in their handling of the situation? Regardless, these are two isolated incidents. For the most part, people get outraged at a lack of information or communication. Rarely do we see such controversial issues the likes of EVE and Anarchy Online presented. So, why do we do this? We do realize that the Community Rep is our messenger, and not the decision-maker... at least, in most cases. And, even so, it is always a team of individuals involved in whatever has caused us such angst in our gaming lives. So... why do we criticize, complain, and overall make our Community/Public Relations folks out as the enemy in our gaming lives? Some may speculate that it's the community representatives' jobs to take the abuse that is dealt out. In other words, they opted to be in the position they're in, and therefore they need to take the good and the bad with it. As a result, when the community isn't happy, then the representatives can and will hear about it - loud and clear. Some members feel it is their duty to the rest of the community to make it painfully obvious that there is some discontent amongst the gamers. Whether or not they were asked to. "I wouldn't say that we as developers don't take the feedback personally, because we do! I would say however, that the players dont always know every angle behind many of the decisions that are made, so it can at times be very frustrating with such a limited view of each individual decision."~Clint Worley - Producer, EverQuest But really, what is it? Frustration at our lack of ability within the game we play? Do we feel that if only the developers would give us what we want, we would be better equipped to succeed? In other words... are there those among us that believe it is the game's fault that they fail, or is really a faulty system provided to us to work with? Should games be developed with easy success goals? Or should players be given more opportunity to win within the models provided? Or is everything pretty much fine where they stand, and some people need to just "get a life"? If you look around the various threads in your own community, you might just find that while not always on the mark, most of our Community Representatives in the industry are fairly active in their respective areas, and quite often reliable with their information. Sure, on occasion, you'll see the dreaded "I am unable to share any information at this time" or "I have nothing to say on this subject", but that's par for the course, isn't it? Really, the CR's are there to bridge the gap between the community and the developers, and they are given limits as to what they can tell us. But what about the developers themselves? Many of them lurk, if not actively participate, in their title's forums - and not only on the "official" forums. So they're up to speed with what's going on out there and the general feel of the players. Is there a reason answers aren't given to the questions, then? "We do visit all product-related sites, but communities that allow rampant bashing and flaming make it very difficult to gather feedback due to the amount of constructive feedback and moderation being almost nil. Forwarding player feedback is very important to me, but it does need to maintain a certain level of maturity and constructiveness in order for me to do so." ~Alyra - Community Manager, Lineage II If you talk to the people responsible for sharing information with the communities, they'll tell you that it's largely a production-based decision. In other words, since whatever they're working on isn't released or tested internally yet, they're not quite prepared to release information. Something may change from now until then, and so sharing information at this point would be largely unproductive for both sides. Sadly, though, many people prefer not to accept this reasoning, and demand information regardless - usually with the promise "I won't hold you to it!". Uh-huh. Riiiight. So where does that leave us? Two sides of the same coin who essentially want the same things, but with differing opinions on how to achieve those mutual goals. What do we do? Communicate more? Have more understanding for each other? Continue in this wacky, but apparently working, relationship and hope that in the end, there are no hard feelings? Often, this weird circling we do, like virtual vultures, is positive for everyone in the end, as it gives us as players a chance to focus on the "dead" aspect of the game and point to it for everyone else to see, and it gives developers an area to focus on either for a fix - or a total replacement. Such as the player-vs-player model in many games. They will typically go through a large overhaul at least once in the game's life - and that is largely due to the outspoken nature of the communities who tend to know so much about how a combat situation should work within that specific title. But in the end, is it worth it? Not only for us... but for our developers, community relations team, etc. Do they feel rewarded at the end of the day, and do we feel that we've succeeded in being heard and effecting change in choice of entertainment? Is the passion we all have for this industry enough to keep us plugging along each day? Some say yes... and I know I couldn't trade it for the world. The people, the players, the developers, representatives, and liaisons... it's all worth it at the end of the day. I've met some amazing folks along the way, and that alone is priceless. Special thanks to the following for taking time to answer some questions in order to help with the writing of this article, and give insight into the lives of our representatives and game developers: INTERVIEW #1: Alyra, Lineage II Community Manager - NCsoft
INTERVIEW #2: Clint Worley, Producer - EverQuest
INTERVIEW #3: Greg Wiatroski, Lead Developer - Toontown |
| [ Discuss This Article ] |
| VOICES Editorial: Does The KR Client Get An Unfair Shake | |
| Posted on Monday, September 24, 2007, 9:25 AM EDT by Joshua Rowan (Editorials) |
It's been awhile since UO Stratics has done a VOICES Editorial, but thanks to Dragons from The Syndicate, we have a great new topic that I'm sure a lot of you have been thinking about lately - the Kingdom Reborn Client. Take the time to read through the entire discussion, then make sure to head on over to the thread in U.Hall and add your own constructive comments about the issue! Does The KR Client Get An Unfair Shake If a nonUO player were to troll the boards over recent weeks they might think that the new "KR Client" was the worst thing ever done to UO given the negativity in some of the posts being made. Of course, a person who views the big picture also realizes two other important facts. First, a small fraction of the gaming population actually posts to forums. Second, while there are definite exceptions, many of the most vocal posts on any topic are made by the highly vocal minority asserting itself. If the views were actually those of the silent majority, most games would implode after only a few months since if the majority really viewed things as dire as some posters make them out to be, they wouldn't keep paying to play. So while I start my editorial from the premise that a great deal of the negativity on forums comes from a very small percentage of the customer base I do think that the complaints about Kingdom Reborn are worth talking about. Why? Because KR did have some serious issues when it launched. It had some very awesome things about it but the issues made it very hard to replace the 2D client for most players. Since players have long memories and don't forgive mistakes easily, launching anything UO related that isn't completely ready can have lasting negative affects even after the issues are fixed. On the flipside of that argument, player involvement does help ferret out changes that just weren't obvious when development is going on isolated from the players or that didn't come to light when there was a relatively small tester base. Regardless of how we got here... and regardless of whether launching KR with all its early issues was a good or a bad thing... we are where we are and we move forward from here. Players always have the final veto because they can always cancel their accounts if they don't like the direction of a game. But I contend that you would be making the wrong decision if you did that with UO today because KR has reached the point it is a viable client and it has even more improvements on the way. I don't dispute that when KR launched it was laggy (and on older machines it still is). I don't dispute that 2D runs faster than KR so for PvP its probably still advantageous to use 2D. But since PvP is only done regularly by a very small percentage of the customer base making it as fast in PvP as 2D isn't the right priority for limited development dollars. I do, however, dispute those that say KR is an unusable client or that it sucks or that its worthless. The KR client, in its current state, is a good client and it is on the cusp of being a great client. Many of the bugs have been fixed (yes, there are still a few bugs or UI improvements that are needed, as of the writing of this article with things like circle of transparency, the map, hunting for Tmaps and even a lurking crash bug or lag issue or two) and it makes the client a very viable option for PvE/PvM (Player Versus Environment/Monster) focused players. Looking at it objectively, KR offers a number of things over the 2D client: - Improved graphics is the most obvious one but that isn't a reason to switch in and of itself because we all felt the graphics were good enough to keep paying our monthly feel else we wouldn't be here debating how good KR is. Improved Graphics is really a selling point to get new players into the game which helps us all by having more life on the servers and more people to meet and even more PvP.
- Improved chat system. UO was in desperate need of getting its very antiquated chat system more on par with the modern standard of MMOs. Friends Lists.. Tells.. A stand alone chat box that you can move around.. are all staples of MMOs that UO was missing. Is it revolutionary? No. But it was a useful addition for all of us veterans and a useful tool to make the game more competitive in the marketplace
- Improved Paperdoll and Improved Backpack. Yep, the old ones worked. The new ones work better. They offer more options and more usability and again, they help market UO to new players. The backpack options can be very helpful. I personally like the "old" style free form backpack and I use that most of the time but there are times a list or slot version is very helpful.
- Improved health bars. I suppose this is a point of debate. There are bound to be some that don't like them but I have found the health bar system in the KR client to be very nice and very helpful more so than I ever found the 2D versions to be. As much or more information, more reliably updated in a more compact space is value added whether you are hunting orc or a peerless boss or fighting other players.
- The Map - Again, the reality was that UO was sorely out of date with its mapping functionality. While I realize the maps still need a bit more work having a much more modern MMO mapping system is another great selling point and, for veteran players, the Waypoint system is a cool addition.
- Crafting Improvements - If you are a crafter, the KR client is a big help. The improvements to the system make playing the client the right move even if thats all you use it for. It is clear thought and effort went into making crafting a better process.
- Hotkey bars and Macros - I saved this feature for last in my list but it is certainly the most positive one in all of KR in my opinion. The improved macro system coupled with the hotbars (that you can add more of.. grow or shrink in size.. assigned key combos to and drag around your screen to wherever you want them). If you were an active Pvper, you already had a mess of macros and hotkeys using tools like UO and the old macro system. Many PvE players had a set of them as well. The new system allows you to do even more and once you learn it you can make some very powerful macros.
Is UO a brand new game because you get KR? Nope. Stygian Abyss is what gives you the new content and new places to go and items to collect and skills to learn. But KR definitely does modernize the client and brings it more on par with other MMOs by offering newer graphics and the standard features MMO players expect. And there is alot more that I didnt talk about not the least of which is UI skinning. That has no real in game value but it creates a more personal connection to the game by letting players customize their UI graphics. Perhaps giving players that ability could be step #1 towards creating some tools players could download and let them create graphics for new items that they could submit as part of a contest and thus get players even more involved in the content of the world of UO. In closing, if you had a bad experience with the KR client a couple months ago.. welcome to the club. I, just like you, had a slew of poor experiences when it first launched. My guild UI got into a hung state and even a reboot didn't fix it. I crashed a variety of times. It was slow to respond even on a fairly modern PC. So, I put it on the virtual shelf and beyond patching it each week, I didnt touch it for a few weeks. Lately I have taken it down and begun overcoming all the muscle memory that I had for the 2D client by setting up KR like 2D. I invested the time to learn the new features and how best to use them. And while 2D still remains faster when it comes to PvP, the KR client is a much stronger client for dungeon crawls, crafting and pretty much everything else in game. It does still need work. It isnt perfect. But it has made great strides. I would encourage you to update your copy and give it a test drive. Set aside an hour or two where all you do is setup your macros and hotkeys etc. just like you were used to them in 2D. Once you do that, take it out for a drive in a dungeon and see how you like it. If your guild has an expert in the client you can do what we in The Syndicate are doing which is to hold classes for our members on our Ventrilo server (and recorded for those that cant make it to listen to later) on all the basics. Learning the idiosyncrasies of a new client, with friends, is often less stressful. Give KR another test drive. It is vastly improved over where it was even a few weeks ago. -Sean-
-Dragons- |
| [ Discuss This Article ] |
|
Stratics Central
