Potential Solutions to the Problems faced by Disco

[chovynz]

So...
Does anyone have any idea what Disco's problems are?
Don't blame people or factions.
What things are causing these issues to resurface?
Because the problem hasn't gone away. It's just cycled to another place, another person's focus.
I would mention attitudes but that's been harped on already lots of times.
What other things could be causing us to rip into each other?
Are we approaching Disco like we approach Singleplayer?
Are we focused on ourselves too much?

What are some potential solutions?
How can we all get to enjoying the game together, no matter what you do, or what happens to you?

How can we get to that place where, it doesnt matter if you get pirated, or if you are the pirate,, or if your ship gets blown up, or if you are the one blowing that ship up, both players can go away from that encounter with an enjoyment in playing Disco?

Let's examine some stuff. Let's have a look at old discarded ideas again, to see if we can get them to work.
This discussion is open to anyone looking for a solution. We don't have to agree that it's the right or correct way. I want to hear the ideas. Your thoughts. Don't be scared of flames. Don't flame anyone else either.

What's wrong with Disco?
What's the fix?

Hyung...I think I know the answers but they aren't pretty. Our admin team is not faceless. They are real people who enjoy playing the game and getting involved as much as the next person. The problem comes in that they will make mistakes and people will feel slighted. Next, people (in general) are stupid, inconsiderate and selfish. Only a faceless, ruthless admin team could hope to curb that behavior. Finally, disco has gotten too popular. The personalized admin team worked great when there were fewer people around. Relationships formed and disputes, while sometimes heated, were generally dealt with in a cordial manner. Nowadays, you have personally invested admins trying to tame a tsunami of internet trash and there is no way they can get to know and understand most players.

The way disco is set up is not conducive to the amount of traffic we see nowadays. All solutions to this problem (that I am aware of) are unpopular in some way. The only way I see the apparent problems being dealt with is by giving our admins anonymity and to exchange the banhammer for a tactical nuke (or remove all capital ships, yikes). Neither of which are at all popular.

So I say attitudes.
You say faceless, ruthless, admins would help.
The very fundamental way Disco is set up needs changing.
Do I understand you right?

Is Disco setup for the numbers we have?
What's the difference between now and before?
Why is it so magnified now? Surely numbers alone wouldn't bring the problems we face?
What would make Disco work for the numbers that we have? - don't just work on the forum-ites. Remember all those who play ingame but don't come on the forums much as well. I've met many people who aren't on the forums but they RP well and try to stay in the rules.
How do we want Disco to work?
What makes a good Disco for you?

Does anyone have any idea what Disco's problems are?

1. What things are causing these issues to resurface?

2. What other things could be causing us to rip into each other?

3. Are we approaching Disco like we approach Singleplayer?

4. Are we focused on ourselves too much?

5. What are some potential solutions?

6. How can we all get to enjoying the game together, no matter what you do, or what happens to you?


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1. Large player base with influx of new players that do not read the rules and think it's awesome to blow up a transport in a Battleship or send 4 Gunboats after a fighter.

2. Summer, people go weird in hot weather :laugh:Besides it's only a minority that actually want to flame on the forum at least. In-game again I put that down to new players, not that I am saying all are bad. Let's face it though, most people that are forum active and have been here awhile show a lot of restraint.

3. I'm not sure I can give a response to that.

4. Probably, I guess that's human nature.

5. Tricky, as has been discussed one solution is too give official factions some lee-way in controlling indies. Another is maintain the status quo. Ganking has been happening for along long time, we have all been the victim of it. Provided it's not a missile boat that needs no skill to fire which irks me, I can usually just run away. I can't see a workable solution that will end uninvited players joining in fights that they were asked not too.

6. I think most of us do, it's why we play here. Yes you can have some bad experiences but you can have some great ones too with polite respectful people.

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Seek fun and you shall find it. Seek stuff to Q_Q about and you'll find that, too. I choose to have fun.

[Spear]

I'm going to start off by saying that Disco's problem's are not as big as some make out. We still have a lot of good experiences, good RP and cool people.

With every big crowd comes trouble, the "There's always one" factor.

I hope people can realise that's there's a lot right here and not become so focussed on what's wrong.

Edit: Thanks for copying over my post from other thread.

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=LSF=

[chovynz]

One problem I've seen (and participated in myself ) is rule lawyering.
I see too much stuff said on system that should be said in pm's.
But then I've also seen too much rule lawyering in pm's as well.

Rule lawyering is just as bad in pm's as it is in system.
How can we help people to remind others gently, instead of rule lawyer?

I hope people can realise that's there's a lot right here and not become so focussed on what's wrong.

That is an awesome thought. Keep it up.

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Seek fun and you shall find it. Seek stuff to Q_Q about and you'll find that, too. I choose to have fun.

[tansytansey]

This is the internet and this is a free public server. Play any public game and you will find this sort of thing, particularly worse on free communities. A close knit community works much better, and all round has a better aptmostphere. There are arguments and disagreements but by in large they pale in comparison to the drama on these forums.
The larger this community gets, the worse it is going to get. Roleplaying communities work best small scale. Discovery has become the largest Freelancer mod, and thus attracts all the new players. Short of turning this into a closed community, I don't see any solution to all our problems.

And we already know that is not going to happen. Any change we make will benefit one group of people while harming another, there isn't a middle ground unfortunately.

Personally I'm choosing to take everything that happens in stride, and try to be better to other people in general. I don't expect anything in return, but I'm going to ask that whenever someone does anything kind to you in game, you will repay the favour by doing three kind things to other players in the community. I think there was a book or a movie about something like this at one point, it's a good concept.

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http://i668.photobucket.com/albums/vv46/Ni...gcloudscopy.png
Image turned into a URL because it made your sig too tall. -Zuke
|Ashes and Draya's Epic Adventure|Ashes "Nighthawk" Yotaka|Nightfall|Eva Jones|
[5:50:49 PM] JakeSG (William Darkmoor) says: I like you, Ashes. You're more cynical than God.

[Monk]

So I say attitudes.
You say faceless, ruthless, admins would help.
The very fundamental way Disco is set up needs changing.
Do I understand you right?

Yes, that is essentially what I am saying. The idea is not without its problems. Increased restrictions, punishments and cold-hearted anonymous judges will eventually cause the population to dwindle. Many people do not want that, others would applaud it. Personally, I am one torn between the two. I like knowing my admins, seeing their personalities and am comforted by the fact that they enjoy this game too. I don't want to give that up. However, I realize that when you have the numbers that we have now (and these issues have been brewing ever since we maxed out the server limit) you have to change the way you govern the masses. In my mind, the only way to handle this is to take adminship out of the spotlight and to increase punishments. Guhh...makes me sad.

[Spear]

Yes, that is essentially what I am saying. The idea is not without its problems. Increased restrictions, punishments and cold-hearted anonymous judges will eventually cause the population to dwindle. Many people do not want that, others would applaud it. Personally, I am one torn between the two. I like knowing my admins, seeing their personalities and am comforted by the fact that they enjoy this game too. I don't want to give that up. However, I realize that when you have the numbers that we have now (and these issues have been brewing ever since we maxed out the server limit) you have to change the way you govern the masses. In my mind, the only way to handle this is to take adminship out of the spotlight and to increase punishments. Guhh...makes me sad.

:laugh:

The admin's can't win, it's too strict, it's too leniant, sanction this guy, don't sanction him though he meant well. Thank God I am not an Admin.

I think we are strict enough at present, we don't need more rules. What we need is more people showing a little more respect to each other. In truth I think a large part of the problem is players who are not forum active, are new here and think everything is about the "PEW PEW"

No matter what we debate here, there will always be players like this. Again please don't think I am tarnishing all new players or players that are not active on the forums, I don't want to generalise people.

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=LSF=

[chovynz]

Pass It On was the movie I think.

It may be a *Free public server* to join, but that makes it even less valid to point and blame fingers at people. (not talking about your post, just mentioning this in passing.)
Those who pay money and spend their time and energy to keep this running are those who own this server. (This does not include donations)

That's part of the problem is that people do not seem to realise they have no *rights* on this server. If Igiss or Majkp stepped away, this *Free Public Server* would shut down.

Nothing in life is free. Someone has to pay, either in time, energy or money, or all three.

And we already know that is not going to happen. Any change we make will benefit one group of people while harming another, there isn't a middle ground unfortunately.

(I'm not disagreeing with your comments, just bringing this out.) I think there is a middle ground, which is what I'm attempting to seek in asking these questions.

By the way, I don't have quick and easy answers. I'm going to be asking lots of questions because something is seriously wrong. That something has had it's time and needs to go away from Disco.

In my mind, the only way to handle this is to take adminship out of the spotlight and to increase punishments.

Perhaps. I'm not so convinced that *Iron will* and friendliness can't co-exist. I personally think that admins need to be connected to the community, and I think that the numbers of players or who the players are doesn't actually matter to good admining, and good servers. But again, it's not the admins fault that we have come to this point. This is something that we as a community are not doing.

So, I'll approach this from a different angle.
How do you want Disco to run?
How do you want Disco to work?

Everything other-pre-Freelancer IS about Pew Pew, but Disco is about RP.
Big differences there. I think that might be where we are seeing lots of the problems.
Freelancer is essentially a Pew Pew system.
It's a Pew Pew framework that we have put an RP system on.
So now we are seeing some bumps. Disco is still growing.
(Yes what we are seeing is growing pains. Nothing more.)
The numbers are going to continue growing.
So what is a good way to cope with the growing numbers?
How should Disco be set up to enable as many players to co-exist as possible?

I think an RP community can work with bigger numbers. It just takes some restructuring. (To quote Eppy.:))

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Seek fun and you shall find it. Seek stuff to Q_Q about and you'll find that, too. I choose to have fun.

[Monk]

:laugh:

The admin's can't win, it's too strict, it's too leniant, sanction this guy, don't sanction him though he meant well. Thank God I am not an Admin.

I think we are strict enough at present, we don't need more rules. What we need is more people showing a little more respect to each other. In truth I think a large part of the problem is players who are not forum active, are new here and think everything is about the "PEW PEW"

No matter what we debate here, there will always be players like this. Again please don't think I am tarnishing all new players or players that are not active on the forums, I don't want to generalise people.

Respect is a rare commodity on the internet. Especially in areas that are popular. I hate rules restricting my gameplay but I am at a loss on what else to do. Passwording the server is another suggestion I had long ago but it seems so taboo now. A new idea, could we somehow partner up with another Discovery server to host a full fledged PvP realm. I know it kinda flopped in the past but maybe this time we could advertise it on the RP server. We could even make the PvP server a little different in that it would be easier to gain money. Perhaps now that our RP server is so full much of time we could more easily entice the less RP inclined to move their happy times on over there.

[farmerman]

I'm pretty sure solving all the problems at once gets you on the consideration list for a Nobel Prize (why they established a Nobel Disco-peace Prize I still don't get though).

Off the top of my head, various issues that seem to be related are as follows:

• The belief that Factions are trying to destroy Independents and that Independents are trying to undermine Factions. If this could be resolved, I think a lot of animosity would go away. Not even sure the root cause of this.
  
  
• The belief that certain members of the dev team are amazingly biased and/or out to get you. Not sure a fix on this, but having more clarity on matters would help. Justifying through the use of pure numbers isn't always helpful, nor is the fact that there doesn't seem to be much saying how things are done. I think if such was the case that a lot of the conspiracy cries would go away.
  
  
• The belief that admins are out to get most everyone. Ok, this probably wasn't helped by the recent chaosthread related chaos. Some other examples are people who are complaining about various rule infractions, but unwilling to do anything about them because they think everything they say on the matter is ignored. Another is that admins unfairly ban certain people.
  
  Solutions? Good question, again. For the latter specifically, I'll go back to my previous idea from quite so long ago - all sanctions and rule related posts should be done by a common account. Then it steps away from any feelings of it being personal (away from, mind you, not completely separated from).
  
  The Admin team also seems to be getting overworked again. Several new Admins had been added, but at the same time there's been an outflux (why isn't that a word?). Perhaps that matter should be looked into? Many hands and lighter work and such.
  
  
• The rules nitpickery. People have a tendency to microanalyze all the rules. Why? Dunno, I barely passed Sociology, but I figure I may've gotten insight if I paid attention. A complete revision may be in order, possibly with examples of right and wrong. There are still a couple rules that seems obsolete, for one thing. Streamline the rules and it may decrease the amount of analyzing the mammoth situation, with rules added on top of older rules, etc.
  
  
• People being angry with unnecessary force. Again, another hard to pinpoint problem. Lots of people get it right, but lots also seem to get it wrong. Joe's last thread on the matter shows a lot of the opinions. I think the fact that there IS a division enforces the problem. Finding a middleground is a must.
  
  
• The feeling of powertrading and people acting oorp. The fact there is plenty of accusations here is just as much of a problem as any actual issues (which are hard to pinpoint for vagueness). Sure, there are plenty of various obvious incidents, but I'm talking about the borderline stuff - is it oorp to attack a fighter in your freighter? There are opinions on both sides. Is it oorp for a Zoner to visit Station X? Opinions are, again, divided.
  
  And where is the line between trading and powertrading? Certainly people can come up with examples that are clearly one or the other, but a huge portion falls in the middle. We need to find a way to resolve these in a way that doesn't further divide people.
  
  For the Zoner specifics, Dab's recent thread has a lot of interesting discussions on the matter. It seems it may be being worked on by the community. It's a first step at least.
  
  
• A difference in the view of the overall goals in Disco. Many people seem to want a static situations where others want something dynamic. I don't think I've ever seen a post about the overall philosophy of Disco in this regard. Which way does it lean more? Certainly that can help move things forward.
  

Basically, the best solution to the problems that I see is, well, actually having non-flamey discussions with particular guidance based on what Disco's ultimate goals are. The non-flamey part is hard to come by, though, unfortunately. Perhaps we could elect some sort of committee to work with the in charge types and represent the community as a whole. Then the Admins can take the position of what's good for stability and the Devs can take the position of what's good for balance. Who has the position of fun, morale, and the overall community health?

Ok, I'm done with my ramble-mobile. Whew, I need a break now.

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Faction info links: Samura Heavy Industries : LWB : Watchers

[Marburg]

Pass It On was the movie I think.

Actually it was called Pay It Forward & as a philosophy, utterly rockin'

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