Lack of Responsibility in Zone Players

[Aileron]

For those who don't know, during today's reset, an experimental team evener was used. It didn't function, and players were able to hop frequencies freely.

 

The behavior of the players was disturbing. While under such conditions, one can expect a few exploiters. But, in this case virtually the entire losing freq would freq hop to the winning week after the music started (and after the ragequit curtain fell), creating stacked teams as bad as 20 vs 1. Furthermore, many of the players present pointed the finger firmly at Ceiu while they themselves were exploiting the situation.

 

While I am not denying that the team evener was faulty, that is not the real issue here. There will always be something wrong with the settings. Nobody on staff is perfect, and thus any product they make will have flaws. The real issue is ourselves. Players should not be so ready to exploit glitches.

 

 

I mean, the intelligence and maturity level reminds me of an episode of The Simpsons - the one where there was a blackout, and the minute the denizens of Springfield noticed it, they proceeded to loot the city. Then, the next day they were all up in arms to the mayor because all of their homes got broken into.

 

 

I'm sure there will be many wonderful ideas on how to reward players for being on the losing/less numerous team. Those are well and good, but the issue here is in the attitude and culture of the players in the zone. There's this attitude in many that the entire zone exists to serve their stats-building rather than a concept of being in competition with other players in a harmonious system.

 

If this was a game of real life pick-up basketball, no group of 10 would stack themselves 9 vs 1 despite the fact that there is no referee to prevent them from doing that. They would most likely stack 5 vs 5. Furthermore, they would voluntarily split the more talented players in as even a manner as possible. They would do this because having a stacked team cream another defeats the whole point of the exercise. Having even teams is more of a challenge and more fun.

 

Let the staff handle the settings. That's their lane. Who here is willing to do something about the culture of the players around here?

[BDwinsAlt]

The 12 year olds that do this probably don't read this forum. Well, I know Cheese does, but the others probably don't.

Maybe there should be a mod online that can lock the players on flag freq, or deal with hoppers. Who knows, maybe HS needs another Mod. HS is a constant beta, so someone will always been a little fucked up, but there will be a fix that fucks something else up, thus constant beta. Maybe someone can "break;" this infinite loop.

 

Edit: To clarify, not a mod constantly on to lock players, just one online to do something when something like this does happen.

Edited February 20, 2010 by BDwinsAlt

[Aileron]

That's good, but my question is more along the lines of: 'How can the responsible players reading this persuade the irresponsible players in the zone to change their ways?'

 

It seems impossible due to the short term gain of the moment. Such as that 20vs1 flag game. We would need to persuade 9 players to not hop and thus not get the flag reward. But, it is possible because over the long term, having balanced teams, no ragequits when you lose, no centering while occupying a slot on the flag team, etc. benefits everyone over the long term.

 

If it hasn't already done so overnight, that 20vs1 gameplay is going to get really lame really fast. Already the players who *deserve* to be on the winning team are getting disgusted. They'll leave, and the flag rewards won't be as high. After that, the exploiters will begin to get bored as well, until nobody flags unless they want to grind money. HS money is only good for buying upgrades for a ship, and eventually players will find the superior ship isn't worth much in fun-inducing value when the only thing you can do with it is hover around base 7 waiting for an nme that is never going to come in order to get an ever-decreasing pot of money.

 

While single game, single player benefits by hopping, ragequitting, whatever-the-exploit-is-it-doesn't-really-matter, over the long term, many games, entire zone, everybody benefits from balanced teams. If the game is legitimate, more players will join, games and flag rewards will get more or more epic. Unless you happen to be playercontinuum, you stand to win about half the flag games you participate in, so:

 

(20,000 ave. flag reward and increasing) * (.5 win rate) * (1000 games) > (4,000 ave. flag reward and decreasing) * (1.0 win rate) * (1000 games)

 

(Average flag rewards come from my personal observation of rewards between legitimate and 'kinky' games respectively, obviously subjective. BTW, if you think the 20k rewards you were seeing yesterday after players hopped are going to continue for long, you are fooling yourself.)

 

It *is* possible to persuade players to stop exploiting because it is in the their *best interest* to do so in the long term/big picture. We just have to show them that in methods less complicated than my quasi-mathematics.

 

 

I need everyone else's help in this because for all my faults, I happen to have the 'please put the crayon back in my brain' level of intelligence. Its so high that it sucks the fun out of life in a lot of ways and creates other faults. One of said faults is I lack the capacity to communicate to immature morons in means they understand, much less agree with.

[»D1st0rt]

I've been hoping for a culture change for a couple of years now, even making a couple of similar topics. Nothing so far

[Sass]

Those darn undisciplined children. It's a good thing they have you guys to keep them in line. ROFL you guys really put the baby in DiaperSpace!

[kasa]

as in real life, teenagers play for the money not for the game

 

so they fight cowardly with continious flanks, glitching as best as they can, quick flag capture for 3-5 minute wins, selectively unspeccing to winners team, speccing while they are on the losing team or forming unofficial privates with teamstacking

 

they like when the game is 15v5 against attackers and even then they try to flank the attacker team to ruin the flag game

 

so either put some laser doors that open only once in 2 minutes when the attacker team lanc gets in to prevent every 30 second flanks, or put some portals where the attacker freq lanc can port directly outside enemy base, or put some safe area outside bases for attacker lanc to sit until attacking team can gather some force

 

prohibit multi-ship flag drops simultaneously so enemy can actually have time to take base, 3 minutes is not enough

so long and so short flag games are quite boring, but at least in long games you can have some fun

 

eveners are good, however they don't prevent teamstacking much, after each game or 2-3 games there should be a team scramble and speccers-freqhoppers should get locked to spec freq or can only return to their previous team if they are attacking until the game is over

[Samapico]

What was wrong with the old team evener?

[Dr Brain]

The old team scrambler crashed the zone.

[omni]

We're all arrogant fuck ups.

There's no such thing as responsibility in an online game. This applies to both players and staff.

[vetta64]

Ailron,

 

Can I get the cliff nots version of your posts? I don't have that much time since reset started.

[Cheese]

The 12 year olds that do this probably don't read this forum. Well, I know Cheese does

 

just representin mah hood, yo. keepin it real fo lyfe!

 

 

 

 

also aileron:

id hate to bring you out of your nice world with pink skies, unicorns, and marshmallows, but the people that play this game are from the real world.

and people from the real world are stupid ignorant retards who will resort to bestiality to get ahead in life.

 

 

knowing this, the programmers are forgetting the programmers' FIRST RULE:

NEVER TRUST THE USER

 

of course these dumb idiots are going to hop and abuse

Edited February 22, 2010 by Cheese

[Samapico]

The first rule would be more accurate as 'Every user must be considered completely stupid and ignorant'

[»D1st0rt]

It would be great if they were all stupid, then they wouldn't be as good at being dicks. Unfortunately a bunch of players are very resourceful and persistent at it.

 

This is why we are stuck in a counter-douchebaggery arms race instead of making cool things for the zone

[»Xog]

i dont blame the freq hoppers. hell, if my freq abandoned ship why the hell should I be the only one left when we're losing? i'd rather get the money too. yeah it's a problem and im sure everyone realized it was but don't point your finger at the players. they're just doing what was best for their best interest.

 

 

Preventing exploitation isn't in a player's interest nor is it their responsibility. That's the staff's job.

 

speaking of staff, hire some new ones.

 

Xog> ?help what bomb does poison ink have?

Ceiu> ITS A GOOD OR BAD BOMB XOG

(in public chat)

 

 

:\ seriously wtf

 

Xog> ?buy bombs

nothing showed up as good or bad bomb. i still have no idea what he was saying.

[Kilo]

Why would that ^ warrant hiring new staff? It does not follow.

 

Preventing exploitation isn't in a player's interest nor is it their responsibility. That's the staff's job.

You don't know anything about anyone's job. But that kind of attitude is exactly why HS rarely will ever get anything new and nice and will often get old things tweaked down and restricted.

[»Xog]

Why would that ^ warrant hiring new staff? It does not follow.

 

Preventing exploitation isn't in a player's interest nor is it their responsibility. That's the staff's job.

You don't know anything about anyone's job. But that kind of attitude is exactly why HS rarely will ever get anything new and nice and will often get old things tweaked down and restricted.

 

wtf r u going on about? You obviously read it wrong.

 

 

I mentioned staff because it's their job to help prevent exploitation then went on to another topic about staff with "speaking of staff" and explained an occurence that happened last night.

 

And they do need more staff, I did ?listmod during prime time and only 1 person was on, Cieu. Who didn't even help me in the slightest. In fact I felt insulted after he responded to my help question.

Edited March 2, 2010 by Xog

[»Xog]

But that kind of attitude is exactly why HS rarely will ever get anything new and nice and will often get old things tweaked down and restricted.

 

You don't even know what you're talking about. How the hell was me asking what kind of bomb poison ink has, an attitude that precisely causes the reason HS will ever get anything "new and nice" etc?

 

what the fuck man?

 

 

I'll be nice here and answer your "Why would that ^ warrant hiring new staff?"

 

It warrants hiring new staff because Cieu was as helpful as a pet catfish from my experience with him. There also seems to be a lack of active staff members as well - atleast when I'm on (which is around 7PM - 1AM EST) 1 out of the past 5 help calls I've done in the past few months was actually answered. Too bad it was a completely useless answer that didn't help at all.

Edited March 2, 2010 by Xog

[Cheese]

Preventing exploitation isn't in a player's interest nor is it their responsibility. That's the staff's job.

 

in case you missed it

 

 

 

also:

lmao, xog is quickly learning why this zone is retarded =)

(ex: finding out that this zone is run by itself, and anyone that calls themselves 'staff' really doesnt do anything)

Edited March 2, 2010 by Cheese

[»Xog]

i dont think any zone is not retarded

 

 

 

all of them are

[Cheese]

that statement certainly didnt used to be true, but as time progresses it moves ever closer to being fact

[Kilo]

Ceiu's job isn't to make you feel good. Nor is any staff's job in any zone. If you want that kind of service, go throw some money at a pay-to-play game. But in this game (and any zone), we're all players, all of the time. Ceiu's job isn't to tell you the items on someone else's ship, in fact that kind of thing would be pretty much an abuse since seeing others' ship builds is intentionally blocked to the regular player. All of the items are documented via ?iteminfo so I'm pretty sure you could figure out a bomb using that since there are hardly any duplicate permutations of shrap cross prox cross level.

 

If you read my post closely (or really at all) you'll notice that I was not referring to your incident with Ceiu when I said "that kind of attitude." It was the block I was quoting right above (the whole point of me quoting was to set the context!) If you think it's the staff's job to fix HS's problems, as opposed to players making their own community not balls deep suckage, then the cycle will continue of time being spent on fixing things people exploit to ruin the game instead of making new things for the game. I was just elaborating on D1's post.

 

Cheese is partially right: there are a lot of messed up things about this zone. However in spite of his clear desire to be in charge of something, he would quickly find out how tedious "nothing" can be.

[»Xog]

If you think it's the staff's job to fix HS's problems, as opposed to players making their own community not balls deep suckage, then the cycle will continue of time being spent on fixing things people exploit to ruin the game instead of making new things for the game. I was just elaborating on D1's post.

 

If it's not the staff's job to fix HS's problem then who's is it hmm? God's? Is it supposed to mystically fix itself?

 

I'm not sure how the exploit was done but the way it was explained sounded pretty easy, just a simple change freq and done. In my opinion that's the fault of the designers. So the module was programmed incorrectly and then you blame the players for changing freq so they can get more money. Excellent job. Was any warning even given? A simple "Don't freq hop while losing or you'll receive a 24-hour ban" type of deal until it was fixed? To me it sounded like staff just didn't even give a fuck or just sat back afraid to do shit cuz the zone would lose population.

 

If you guys want a happier fucking community, MAKE us happy. All you're doing right now is siting back and complaining about the community. How do you honestly expect us to show you any kind of respect? You're pointing fingers at us and accusing us of ruining the zone. Fuck you. Man the fuck up and do your job.

 

Nice job addressing my other point too, which I'll reiterate just in case you happened to completely miss it.

 

It warrants hiring new staff because Cieu was as helpful as a pet catfish from my experience with him. There also seems to be a lack of active staff members as well - atleast when I'm on (which is around 7PM - 1AM EST) 1 out of the past 5 help calls I've done in the past few months was actually answered. Too bad it was a completely useless answer that didn't help at all.

 

If you want the HS playerbase to be better and happier then you need to support us instead of showing unprofessional service and embarassing workmanship. I wasn't telling you to get rid of the current staff - I said hire new staff. Which means expand, add more, recruit. The service this zone has is laughable at best.

[Kilo]

Bugs happen. You get what you pay for. There's nothing embarrassing or laughable about it (as far as the angles you're coming from.) Other zones don't seem to have the kinds of problems HS does because of two things: they are interested in playing good games (so even if something is breaking they don't go out of their way to break it more), and the players give back to the zone. They don't wait for volunteers to give them something first, either. Don't be ridiculous. You still seem to think you know anything about the jobs in this zone, which is strange because you are not and have never been a job holder here nor the person to decide what the jobs are. Can we do this runaround some more? This is a community game, and everyone has an equal stake and requirement to take responsibility for the community. That's how free games operate.

[Cheese]

 

If you guys want a happier fucking community, MAKE us happy. All you're doing right now is siting back and complaining about the community. How do you honestly expect us to show you any kind of respect? You're pointing fingers at us and accusing us of ruining the zone. Fuck you. Man the fuck up and do your job.

 

lololololololol this guy learns quickly

[Kilo]

Learning how to do nothing and expect everything, I suppose.