Post by Redneck Jack on Jan 11, 2010 1:37:29 GMT -5
National Player Faction Wax Seal Decoration
01/08/2010 | Devlog | fraxl | Discuss
PotBS is a social game where (we hope) you form social relationships with other players. Sometimes those social relationships are positive and some of them are negative. You can probably think of people in game that fall into both of those categories for you. We’ve generally tried to promote positive relationships and give you tools to help them along – it’s one of the main reasons we got rid of chat language restrictions, increased the society member limit, implemented mission sharing, the Skirmish system, Leaderboards and a slew of other features. Getting to know other players and forming positive bonds is part of what makes playing an MMO so much fun.
But there’s always the other side of the coin. Just like in real life, a percentage of people in the game are unwilling or unable to play nicely with others. We try to give you tools so that these people impact your good time as minimally as possible. Your ignore list, the report spam option, chat filtering and the kick command in skirmish are examples of this, as is the “report post” feature on the forums. If none of that helps minimize the effect of a few bad apples on your experience, you also have the chance to file a support ticket and alert our in-game support staff to the problem.
While we think our GMs do a great job, what we really want is to put more power in your hands to control your own social relationships. To that end, we’re adding a new faction to the game – your National Player Faction. This means that French players will automatically be part of the French Player Faction and Pirates will be part of the Brethren Player Faction, etc. Just like any faction, you’ll gain reputation over time with your player faction to become Liked, Loved or Celebrated. Reputation points will be awarded over the course of normal gameplay, since you’re already serving your nation much of the time. You can see your national player faction in your Reputation UI:
Your national player faction is displayed in your Reputation UI
What makes the player faction different than other factions, however, is how you can lose reputation points. The only way to get a negative reputation with your player faction is to be flagged by another player of your nation as a Traitor. This means that if you’re caught blatantly cross-teaming in a Port Battle, for instance, the players on your side can flag you as a Traitor. They can enter a short reason why they’re flagging you and it gets recorded along with a bunch of other data about that moment, in case a GM has to follow up on the incident. If a player gets flagged by a lot of people over the course of a long enough time, they can actually become Distrusted, Loathed or Hated by their own nation.
If a character slips into Distrusted status, taxes at all his nation’s ports increase to 20%. He also gets a system mail explaining the consequences of Distrusted status, as well as what will happen if he continues on his path. Similarly, Loathed and Hated players are also notified in detail about how the world changes for them as a result of their bad reputation.
If the character continues to cause problems for the players of his nation, he could eventually become Loathed. The consequences for being Loathed are:
* Tax rates increased to 50% in your nation’s ports.
* Restricted from the Conquest system (including generating unrest and participating in port battles).
* Barred from grouping with other players.
* Permanently PvP flagged.
When a character is Hated by their player faction, it’s as though he has given up his allegiance to his side and the privileges that come with it. The character is visually marked in their ship and avatar target UI to identify them as Hated. They will also show up in a unique color in the minimap and local map. Additionally, this effect has the following penalties:
* +80% tax rates in your nation’s ports.
* Cannot generate unrest or be killed for unrest.
* Cannot receive Port Battle invites.
* Cannot invite players to a group, or be invited to a group.
* Expelled from their society and cannot be invited to a society while Hated.
* Permanent PvP flag.
* Restricted to local chat.
* Can no longer flag other players as Traitors.
There is hope, however, for rehabilitation of traitors. They can pay off their debt to society by doing things that help their nation and award positive reputation, but only if they’re on their best behavior with other players.
Now, a lot of what I’ve just said might sound alarming, but assured that your game isn’t going to be ruined by some jerk flagging you all the time for no reason. This system is meant as a way to air actual grievances and, as such, we’ve implemented a lot of checks to prevent abuse. First, we’ve tuned the reputation scale such that a single flag won’t hurt someone too much, but a steady stream of reports of their bad behavior over a long enough time will have a penalty. There’s also a cool-down period between the time you’ve identified one Traitor and the next time you can do it again. Accusing someone of being a Traitor is Serious BusinessTM and is not to be taken lightly. We’ve also set it up so that the word of a high reputation player counts for more than the word of someone who’s just a hair shy of Distrusted.
In a perfect world, there would be no Traitors and we could just get on with the business of sinkin’ ships and takin’ ports. We hope this new system empowers you to do just that- enjoy the game with your friends and fellows, while minimizing the interference of people who want to be malicious. Of course, we understand that there will still be situations that require intervention from the customer support team and our GM team will continue to be available as usual. In addition, were working on some new harassment policies for GMs to follow that will compliment the Player National Faction system, so watch for news about those soon.
01/08/2010 | Devlog | fraxl | Discuss
PotBS is a social game where (we hope) you form social relationships with other players. Sometimes those social relationships are positive and some of them are negative. You can probably think of people in game that fall into both of those categories for you. We’ve generally tried to promote positive relationships and give you tools to help them along – it’s one of the main reasons we got rid of chat language restrictions, increased the society member limit, implemented mission sharing, the Skirmish system, Leaderboards and a slew of other features. Getting to know other players and forming positive bonds is part of what makes playing an MMO so much fun.
But there’s always the other side of the coin. Just like in real life, a percentage of people in the game are unwilling or unable to play nicely with others. We try to give you tools so that these people impact your good time as minimally as possible. Your ignore list, the report spam option, chat filtering and the kick command in skirmish are examples of this, as is the “report post” feature on the forums. If none of that helps minimize the effect of a few bad apples on your experience, you also have the chance to file a support ticket and alert our in-game support staff to the problem.
While we think our GMs do a great job, what we really want is to put more power in your hands to control your own social relationships. To that end, we’re adding a new faction to the game – your National Player Faction. This means that French players will automatically be part of the French Player Faction and Pirates will be part of the Brethren Player Faction, etc. Just like any faction, you’ll gain reputation over time with your player faction to become Liked, Loved or Celebrated. Reputation points will be awarded over the course of normal gameplay, since you’re already serving your nation much of the time. You can see your national player faction in your Reputation UI:
Your national player faction is displayed in your Reputation UI
What makes the player faction different than other factions, however, is how you can lose reputation points. The only way to get a negative reputation with your player faction is to be flagged by another player of your nation as a Traitor. This means that if you’re caught blatantly cross-teaming in a Port Battle, for instance, the players on your side can flag you as a Traitor. They can enter a short reason why they’re flagging you and it gets recorded along with a bunch of other data about that moment, in case a GM has to follow up on the incident. If a player gets flagged by a lot of people over the course of a long enough time, they can actually become Distrusted, Loathed or Hated by their own nation.
If a character slips into Distrusted status, taxes at all his nation’s ports increase to 20%. He also gets a system mail explaining the consequences of Distrusted status, as well as what will happen if he continues on his path. Similarly, Loathed and Hated players are also notified in detail about how the world changes for them as a result of their bad reputation.
If the character continues to cause problems for the players of his nation, he could eventually become Loathed. The consequences for being Loathed are:
* Tax rates increased to 50% in your nation’s ports.
* Restricted from the Conquest system (including generating unrest and participating in port battles).
* Barred from grouping with other players.
* Permanently PvP flagged.
When a character is Hated by their player faction, it’s as though he has given up his allegiance to his side and the privileges that come with it. The character is visually marked in their ship and avatar target UI to identify them as Hated. They will also show up in a unique color in the minimap and local map. Additionally, this effect has the following penalties:
* +80% tax rates in your nation’s ports.
* Cannot generate unrest or be killed for unrest.
* Cannot receive Port Battle invites.
* Cannot invite players to a group, or be invited to a group.
* Expelled from their society and cannot be invited to a society while Hated.
* Permanent PvP flag.
* Restricted to local chat.
* Can no longer flag other players as Traitors.
There is hope, however, for rehabilitation of traitors. They can pay off their debt to society by doing things that help their nation and award positive reputation, but only if they’re on their best behavior with other players.
Now, a lot of what I’ve just said might sound alarming, but assured that your game isn’t going to be ruined by some jerk flagging you all the time for no reason. This system is meant as a way to air actual grievances and, as such, we’ve implemented a lot of checks to prevent abuse. First, we’ve tuned the reputation scale such that a single flag won’t hurt someone too much, but a steady stream of reports of their bad behavior over a long enough time will have a penalty. There’s also a cool-down period between the time you’ve identified one Traitor and the next time you can do it again. Accusing someone of being a Traitor is Serious BusinessTM and is not to be taken lightly. We’ve also set it up so that the word of a high reputation player counts for more than the word of someone who’s just a hair shy of Distrusted.
In a perfect world, there would be no Traitors and we could just get on with the business of sinkin’ ships and takin’ ports. We hope this new system empowers you to do just that- enjoy the game with your friends and fellows, while minimizing the interference of people who want to be malicious. Of course, we understand that there will still be situations that require intervention from the customer support team and our GM team will continue to be available as usual. In addition, were working on some new harassment policies for GMs to follow that will compliment the Player National Faction system, so watch for news about those soon.
