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In-Game Enforcement

Jul 27, 2003 Forum Moderator link
This is becoming an issue again, so it's time for a repost:

Currently the developers have instructed the guides to police only the following:

1) Chat abuse / verba; abuse: Players are asked not to direct unwanted profane, racist, or sexual comments at other players. This is not to say that players cannot curse - that's what the filter is for. Saying "Sherpa is a motherf**king a**hole." is verbal abuse and is not permitted. Saying "I f**king hate guides." is permitted, though some players may not appreciate the language. Spamming is also not permitted. Generally 4 or fewer lines of text are not a problem, but more than this becomes disruptive to others. A warning or two may be given to the offending player at the time of the offense, followed by muting if the player fails to comply. The muting generally lasts until the player agrees to avoid verbally abusing others. This could be a minute, or it could be days.

2) Bug abuse: If a bug (that is, an aspect of the game that is not working as it was intended)is discovered and it is misused to seriously interfere with players (killing others while invulnerable, flag capping while invulnerable, etc.) the offender will be asked to cease. If the bug abuse continues, measures up to and including banning can be used.

* There is much talk of "exploiting". This is actually a term used mostly in internet security to describe gaining access through un-secure software, but in Vendetta players are using it to describe the practices of rocket-ramming, stationing, station mining, jumping, and so forth. While many would describe these practices as "cheap", they are NOT against the rules. There is no official punishment for these practices because they take advantage of aspects of the game that are working as they were expected to. The developers have told me, essentially, that the game issues that result are the fault of the developers and are not to be policed by the guides. The developers are well aware of the impact of these practices, and fixes are in the works.

Please be patient with the development process. The developers are writing the game engine from scratch. Some of you may be familiar with modifying existing commercial game engines via a pre-made interface and may assume that changes are simple. This is not the case with a game-engine in development. Everything takes time, and one change may impact a whole host of other things. Sometimes functional code needs to be torn out and rebuilt to include a new feature or fix a problem. You want the developers to create a game-engine that is well thought-out and logical. Screaming for quick fixes and immediate attention to your particular pet-peeve is not helpful. Calmly reporting problems in detail and even suggesting solutions IS helpful. Remember, your job is to test this thing. Your pay is free access 24/7 and a hand in developing something cool. Enjoy.