Staff Feedback Thread

[EisenSeele]

That one would make playing factions like Corse actually possible, but is yet another restriction that adds a burden and will threaten people with sanctions for doing roleplay after they "died" - basically aces would deny people who aren't as good the chance to RP.

It'll have to be a balancing act, but everyone being able to report everything has a chilling effect on letting factions that are vulnerable to diplomacy but canonically devious from being devious.

You have already no RP consequences outside of House space for lawfuls which is as far as this should go in terms of threatening people with sanctions, hiding RP posts etc.

This is a big one that we're looking at as well, though the original purpose remains relevant - to prevent factions like IMG or Junkers from being forced to abandon the fun parts of their history and qualities in favor of being boyscout or risk getting kicked from house space. We have a number of potential alternatives that we're still ironing out, and we can open discussion up to the public for comment once we've organized our thoughts.

Reward people for good RP instead who play along for example instead

We want this as well, but game mechanics work best as mechanics rather than as verbal agreements that only sort of apply sometimes.

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FEEDBACK

[Eternal.Journey]

We've been in discussion regarding several pain points that the current rulesets have posed in terms of both roleplay quality and how to entice people into making the game more immersive for everyone.

We might be test running things like "wiping" memory of sessions on death to make the prospect of leaving no witnesses as a possibility - though we'll still need to iron everything out.

Everything is super preliminary, and we're always willing to hear suggestions so that we can move forward with as many options on the table

That needs more info than just this tease. That, as youve highlighted it as something that needs thought, also leaves certain factions very vulnerable on the point that if you lose, you cant report the loss through a comm or through some form of storytelling.

I hope you guys know what you're doing with this, becauae if there's a loophole left unchecked, then there will be a whole host of other problems with the issues that will arise. Some of them will be far worse to the community than what we already have.

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[Commandantt]

Maybe staff can create space on a forum dedicated to talking with the community about their (admins) current "problems/feelings" about rules and so on. And then maybe you can share something about what you're talking right now among discovery staff?

So the community will join the dialogue and could tell what they think about your concerns/ideas. So we're gonna start moving to somewhere more real, not just talking about feelings here? This will also show how much we(players) are interested in such problems if we think that it's a real problem, etc.

I think such variant can get some chance to live.

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[Soban]

That needs more info than just this tease. That, as youve highlighted it as something that needs thought, also leaves certain factions very vulnerable on the point that if you lose, you cant report the loss through a comm or through some form of storytelling.

I hope you guys know what you're doing with this, because if there's a loophole left unchecked, then there will be a whole host of other problems with the issues that will arise. Some of them will be far worse to the community than what we already have.

That could be indeed problematic, but Admin could left way for a report to still be sent in some way.
1- You are near a neutral/allies base, they can report it
2- You say as they start hostilities and a neutral/friend base is in the system: I'm broadcasting this live, you will not get away that easily, you degenerate cluster of twat heads!
3- You are fully alone far from anything, like in iota system about to be tentacled and send your last will, maybe in a week the com might reach someone. Or if an ally goes in the system they can pick it up and leave to report back?
4- Nothing is sent, but the faction can still send people to get clue why X char or Y fleets got missing, after some investigation locate and reach the battle zone. And there they will get debris/pod to have something to guess and report.

[Lemon]

Just do as the Corse Lore says and what you do for metagaming already - what happens in Nebulas and secret systems, stays there - Corse wrecks say they murdered EFL, GMS, Navy, Brigands at points, all of them refer to nebulae, asteroid fields etc. Remaining neutral or allies in the eyes of all of the mentioned. There can even be message on screen when you enter one I believe?

A rogue coming to Manhattan, shooting down navy and a report not being filed would be absurd

[LuckyOne]

Don't we already have IFF spoofing? With it any faction can claim plausible deniability. For example a Freelancer IFF-ed Corse could kill people and that should be exempt from any role play consequences on the whole Corse faction, unless the Freelancers are seen working with Corse IFF-ed ships directly.

The only problem is the rule that OFs must always stick to the one chosen IFF.

[SnakThree]

Rules addition: 2.0.1

2.0 (regarding IDs) now has an additional clause allowing indies who are grouped with OF members to accompany those OF members elsewhere within the latter's ZOI (such as in cases where an OF has perk-requested a larger ZOI compared to their indies).

Rules Wrote:
2.0 - Every ship must have one ID equipped, and play in a way that represents the role of that ID. Your ID explains what you can do and where. Some IDs have a 'Zone of Influence' (ZOI) where extra actions are permitted. All IDs have a ZOI in systems containing an NPC station of the same affiliation.

2.0.1 - Ships without an official faction ID may extend their ZOI to match that of an official faction with a larger ZOI, so long as the independent ship and the official faction ship are of the same NPC affiliation and in group together.


As an example, if an official Liberty Navy faction were to perk request ZOI on Omega-55, a Liberty Navy indy (who otherwise would not have O-55 ZOI) could treat Omega-55 as part of their ZOI while in group with members of this OF.

I suggest to slightly alter it to:
2.0.1 - Ships without an official faction ID may extend their ZOI to match that of an official faction with a larger ZOI, so long as the independent ship and the official faction ship are of the same NPC affiliation and flying in group together

One could argue that indie flying out of ZOI but being in group chat with official LN back in NY adheres to the letter of the rules.

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[Harcourt Fenton Mudd]

Rules addition: 2.0.1

2.0 (regarding IDs) now has an additional clause allowing indies who are grouped with OF members to accompany those OF members elsewhere within the latter's ZOI (such as in cases where an OF has perk-requested a larger ZOI compared to their indies).

Rules Wrote:
2.0 - Every ship must have one ID equipped, and play in a way that represents the role of that ID. Your ID explains what you can do and where. Some IDs have a 'Zone of Influence' (ZOI) where extra actions are permitted. All IDs have a ZOI in systems containing an NPC station of the same affiliation.

2.0.1 - Ships without an official faction ID may extend their ZOI to match that of an official faction with a larger ZOI, so long as the independent ship and the official faction ship are of the same NPC affiliation and in group together.


As an example, if an official Liberty Navy faction were to perk request ZOI on Omega-55, a Liberty Navy indy (who otherwise would not have O-55 ZOI) could treat Omega-55 as part of their ZOI while in group with members of this OF.

I suggest to slightly alter it to:
2.0.1 - Ships without an official faction ID may extend their ZOI to match that of an official faction with a larger ZOI, so long as the independent ship and the official faction ship are of the same NPC affiliation and flying in group together

One could argue that indie flying out of ZOI but being in group chat with official LN back in NY adheres to the letter of the rules.

I see where your coming from and don't disagree, but if they official does the indie should be allowed to finish up what they were doing.

[Harcourt Fenton Mudd]

Don't we already have IFF spoofing? With it any faction can claim plausible deniability. For example a Freelancer IFF-ed Corse could kill people and that should be exempt from any role play consequences on the whole Corse faction, unless the Freelancers are seen working with Corse IFF-ed ships directly.

The only problem is the rule that OFs must always stick to the one chosen IFF.

Intel faction OFs are exempt Im pretty sure

[vladimir26]

After much contentious discussion, we’ve settled on the following:

1. The staff team is unsatisfied by the degree of roleplay that has been happening on the server – for quite some time now, and we are in the process of reworking the rules to ensure more rigorous standards for roleplay on the server when it comes to staying in character, ensuring more immersive and realistic interactions between characters in the game, and adding some degree of in-character justification when it comes to exercising violence such that Discovery is not Murderhobo Online. This will also apply to a renewed increased standard on meta 'meme' character names referencing popular culture or anything else that does not fit within the Freelancer universe.

2. The decision to interpret existing rules that mandate roleplay in this manner is a divergence from the status quo, and requires proper communication to the community at large BEFORE enforcement can be fairly expected. The harsh penalty put on Mort was an overreaction which was, in part, due to the application of a new (or very old) standard which has not been the norm for quite some time – and so we will be scaling back the ban length from one month to one week, including the time currently served.

3. The initial sanction did not mention a point of justification involving an interaction in which Mort encountered an under-cover wild character that was carrying code weaponry – while Mort was in ZOI and had piracy/combat lines, his character instead stopped the wild ship, ignored the wild player’s attempts to roleplay and pretended it was silently running in order to justify proceeding straight to shooting. We have since received notice from the reporting player that Mort approached the reporter unprompted by anyone but his own conscience, apologized, and made efforts to make things right on his own – behavior which we want to see encouraged. Given that the reporting player accepted Mort’s apology and attempts to make it up to the reporter, we decided to factor this into the reduction of sanction duration.


We handled this sanction poorly due to a mixture of frustration surrounding what we see as a long and slow backslide of roleplay quality in Discovery and for that, I apologize. We are continuing to work on tempering emotional responses with more consideration into ensuring consistent and fair rule enforcement - and we will also work on methods to making this game a more immersive and rewarding roleplay platform than a PVP deathmatch server with a thin veneer of rp labels. I hope that the community can bear with us in this awkward phase of transition - there's going to be a period of troubleshooting and difficulty ahead that we feel is necessary to make Discovery a great place to make fun characters to tell compelling stories AND go nuts with ultra violence. We will continue to try to listen to criticism without ego or pride, and make attempts to aknowledge our mistakes and address issues as they come.

Hello!

It's been a month and some of us (or only me) had hopes that staff moderation will improve. Yet in the past days we're witnessing a legit circus coming out from one of the admins, @Petitioner . The term egregious has become a meme since its improper use of describing certain actions that don't belong only to certain players, but the whole community itself, double standards as to how to share evidences and how to not share them, posting a sanction about a meme while memeing the offender, and even a kind reminder that uninvolved players should mind their business or they consent to retaliation.

It might be only me, but I find this behavior egregious and appalling. It gives me the vibe that the offenders are merely peasants on his field. A little more respect and professionalism would do nice, especially in this period where Staff confidence it's on an all time low.

On the second matter, I am aware that a vote has to pass through so one gets the hammer, but it feels it only drops only on a certain group of the community. People are still calling for equal treatment, yet certain guys have your scopes locked on them, and they're being hit with high punishments over non egregious offences. Are they taking one for the team, for the whole community? I would like to once again ask for fair judgement, if your intentions to fix the mess that we're dealing with are indeed legit. Keeping it up will only deepen the hole between the Staff and the community.

Regards.

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