New set of punishments

[alex879ro]

During the last period of time , I couldn`t help somehow thinking that maybe the punishments for the players are a bit hard. Don`t get me wrong, I don`t support rule breaks but somehow we could improve this aspect. Therefore I propose a new set of punishments for the rule breakers. Also, Xor can tell us which of this is technically possible, which is not. If the punishments are accepted by both sides(admins & players) , we can start a debate about how to implement those punishments to a transformed set of rules and also about what we should add or remove from the current rules.

My idea is to group the punishments into 3 categories....and for every rule break to have 3 cases: easy breaking, medium breaking and heavy breaking
I`m thinking about implementing this into an admin code so we could try to be a bit more objective then we currently are.

Easy punishments: 1: Paying an amount of money (the company is forced to pay or to lose a certain amount of money which would make it harder to finish 1st)
                               2: Not being able to build for X minutes (Everything a certain player builds....is deleted automatically for X minutes)
                               3: Taking the company out of the Goal System (Losing the right to compete in the game)
                               4: Deleting vehicles (the company loses a number of vehicles)
                               5: Muting the player (taking care of those players who simply don`t know when to stop)

Medium punishments: 6: Taking a coefficient of points (each server has a certain amount of points...so if you break the rules in server 5 , you lose 50 points (example),if  you break them in server 3 , you lose 30 points (example)
                                    7: Suspend the account for X days (the player cannot maintain his scoring with his account being suspended for X days)
                                    8: Remove certain achievements  (the player loses certain achievements that he earned)
                                    9: Transfering money to the victim (In the cases where a rule break did more damage then usual)

Hard punishments : 10: Kicking the player
                                11: Suspending his account (All the points are lost)
                                12: Tempbanning his ip
                                13: Permanent ban of the player ip

Depending on the severity of the cases, I consider that those should be the punishments. I also am very curious to see opinions about this proposal. Also, I installed a poll for the players to vote (since the admins are very few, we will vote separately). Opinions please

[geo]

This sounds interesting, really

[Andreas]

Well first of all: I do agree that maybe in some cases punishment is too hard, and I do agree that maybe a change of guidelines would ba a good idea. What should be conidered though is that it has to be transparent for both admins and players and there should be a way to guarantee players get treated equally. Therefor this is what I have to say on the proposals"

Easy punishments: 1: Paying an amount of money (the company is forced to pay or to lose a certain amount of money which would make it harder to finish 1st)

While this might sound good, I see a few snags: for exampe the amount of money: in early game and on short goals it will have a huge impact, while after 12 years in an average long run goal 40 million won't even make that much of a difference. Also for what rulebreaks should this be aplied for example? IMHO it will be too hard to implement it in an objective way.

2: Not being able to build for X minutes (Everything a certain player builds....is deleted automatically for X minutes)

I do like the sound of this one. Although I think you are thinking too complicated on this one: locking a company for some time will have the same effect without having to code a lot of extra stuff.

3: Taking the company out of the Goal System (Losing the right to compete in the game)

Once again, no direct problems but: would resetting the company not be a better idea here? The player can start a new company should he decide too, witch sounds good to me since this is listed in the 'easy' part.

4: Deleting vehicles (the company loses a number of vehicles)

Allthough this might sound nice, I don't think it is practically desirable. An admin would have to send them all to depot and remove them. It might just be more work for the admin than a punishment for the rulebreaker :p Also the same problem as with the money thing. The difference of impact and trouble with 'fairness' between stages of the game and goals would also make it hard to implement.

5: Muting the player (taking care of those players who simply don`t know when to stop)

You mean players that keep ruining thing in the chat? TBH I think they should just be kicked form the server then... The idea is to keep it fun for all, and if someone just complains, insults and so on he is no fun to have around anyway

6: Taking a coefficient of points (each server has a certain amount of points...so if you break the rules in server 5 , you lose 50 points (example),if  you break them in server 3 , you lose 30 points (example)

This does sound like a fair one to me. I suggest to make it a percentage though in stead of a fixed amount of points thb. That will imo be an easier way to keep the punishment equal between goals and game results.

7: Suspend the account for X days (the player cannot maintain his scoring with his account being suspended for X days)

Sounds good but I do wonder: Would a tempban not be the thing to do?
As I see it from a player pov there are 2 options:
 1. The player cares for score: in that case he will probable not play anyway
 2. The player does not care for the score: where is the punishment?

8: Remove certain achievements  (the player loses certain achievements that he earned)

Well for most achievements once you got them you have a pretty good idea of how to do it, so it would be easy to get them back. But more importantly I think the punishment should have some connection with the 'crime' witch seems absent here.

9: Transfering money to the victim (In the cases where a rule break did more damage then usual)

This sounds good, but: who is the victim of a rulebreak? If it is blocking of a certain player, it is clear, but in other cases it would not be so easy. Furthermore: how should the 'damage' be valued?
So I think this could be usefull but needs a lot of extra thought

For the last category I have no remarks as that is already in the possibilities of an admin. Although I do not think a kick is such a harsh thing. The player can simply rejoin.

Depending on the severity of the cases, I consider that those should be the punishments.

Well that is the best of them all I think! Punish according to severity

The end (of my evaluation)

[Andreas]

I see that most player think that new punishments are a good idea. It is still early for conclusions but apparently it as support.

That does make me wonder a few practical things:
Are the old punishments just too harsh?
Do you like some, or all of the new punishments?

And most important of all to be able to be fair: In what case for example should an admin remove vehicles/money from a company?

[ZeroIncome]

I agree with Andreas' post.

That does make me wonder a few practical things:
Are the old punishments just too harsh?
Do you like some, or all of the new punishments?

- Depends on the community you want, harsher punishments make for a more serious game (serious players etc.) soft punishments will attract a different crowd. (Player are probably more relaxed when they don't feel like there is a tempban waiting for them if they goof off a bit)
- I agree with what you wrote about the new punishments in your other post.

[alex879ro]

Ofc....I thought about that....and we`re gonna express clearly the new set of punishments. So far there are just the punishments that I could think off.

What i wanted is to see what people think about them. A very important aspect is how many of them can be done technically. Beside that...the aspect is very simple:

I don`t consider that for a player who goofs once  is ok to apply a punishment like kicking or banning. Also, you are right....but you forgot an aspect: Player number

If the punishments are lighter, players won`t be so afraid of coming here. As I said, in the past 2 years there were a lot of persons that complained about the behaviour of admins describing it as "Gestapo" . That simple thought reflects a lot. In the end the purpose is to teach the players to play by certain rules, not to kick them and ban them. Also, if somebody plays and you take away half their money because of a goof like blocking an industry(this is an example) , I don`t see the unfair here.

As I said, banning is still in the punishments, but the main purpose is to think about each rule-break that a player can make and to divide them into 3 cases: Easy, Medium & Heavy.  For example for Insulting, we got 1: warn ; 2 : kick; 3: ban. They seem a little harsh and i think it would look much better as 1: warn 2: not being able to build for 5-10 minutes 3: muting for 30-60 minutes 4: kick 5: ban

Ofc , banning remains the final solution, but so far it was one of the first solutions because the lack of patience , because it is simple  , and also because of the lack of other punishments. As I said....I`m in this situation too.

You were perfectly right about the seriousness of the players, but quite often, even our serious players have complained about this Gestapo behaviour.
Last , but not least....I asked how do the punishments sound like. I will post a new set of rule and we`ll discuss it in the forum, but only after enough opinions are expressed about the punishments. Until then....the way they`re gonna be applied is not in the discussion.

About Andreas`s question : How will an admin decide what vehicles to remove, my thought when it came through my mind was about a player that uses satellites , and for example if he has a system of 30 trains and 1 stations with satellites, removing the whole 30 trains seems fair in my opinion.

P.S. Andreas`s question was the very best and most important: DO YOU LIKE ALL OR ONLY A FEW OF THE NEW PUNISHMENTS. In that case...Which Ones?

[ZeroIncome]

The only interesting punishment you suggested was muting. Then verbal insults just result in a 5 minute mute so the player can cool off. The rest just sound like they would escalate the situation instead of help it.

If somebody breaks the rules and then his company is locked I don't think this will make him happy so he'll probably just start spamming chat and breaking more rules. So then you'll probably mute him, but then he'll start boiling and in the best case just leave the server - but wouldn't just kicking him in the first place have been a better solution?

I don't think the ways of punishment should be changed, maybe just the execution. (But I can't comment on this since I have no idea what your methods are)

Another thing I can point out is that suspending a players account or resetting his points or achievements is only interesting for players that care about them. Somebody who is constantly just ruining the atmosphere on the server obviously doesn't. (So will it have any real effect apart from the player just shrugging his shoulder "Oh well")

[Andreas]

I don't think the ways of punishment should be changed, maybe just the execution. (But I can't comment on this since I have no idea what your methods are)

While it is true that you don't know the current methods this IS your chance to give an opinion of how they *should* be. (based on experience or what you consider fair)

[ZeroIncome]

Well the only thing I'd change from my experiences is that admins should only interfere when another player complains.

I experienced two occasions that I remember quite well where we were just having some fun on the server (in other words everybody was in on it or knew what was going on) and then an admin logs in to check on things and suddenly the kicks and tempbans start flying.

Of course this is kind of a strange request since this means people are not strictly following the rules all the time, but if nobody is complaining isn't everybody happy? Aren't the rules in place to ensure the enjoyment of all players? If they are already enjoying themselves isn't it already achieved?

Probably an odd suggestion (or maybe it looks like I'm just trying to get away with breaking the rules), but food for thought.

[Andreas]

Well while for some smaller things I get it, there are a few snags:

First of all some stuff just cheats the cv or pref score. that does not only affect the players currently in the server but also all other players bothering for score. If we can all just start pushing cv or spamming stations the score won't be worth anything anymore.

secondly som players call admins fast, and some don't. This policy will disadvantage players that don't like calling an admin. Also I have seen a few players get mad at their fellow player when he calls for admin. This might increase if admins only come when called.

So concluding I think there could be some minor things we could just overlook if it does not bother other players, but fairness is also one of the aims of the rules. That aside you are not the first player to bring this up so it is worth mentioning.

[ST2]

Despite the fact that some ideas are not bad at all, probably hard to implement without source code changes.

But I truly have to ask: are the problems on the current rules or on how admins act in front of them?

For my question, I have 2 examples:
- a total intentional blocking, admin called (by sign placed), admin screenshoted the coordinates but ignored totally;
- a player try to join his company - HIS COMPANY - and get a permanent ban.

both above situations happened in the latest week, witch leads me to ask: Is that the main problem in current rule set or admin "how to act"? (new, old or whatever)

So, accordingly new suggestions (and actions), trying to join your own company give players a permanent ban (or that was set on old admin behaviour??!)

[alex879ro]

Well, as already said , the problem is both. Admin punishments can have a bit too much freedom , and also players can have problems understanding the rules.
If the new set of punishments will state clearly 3 cases in which the admin must act accordingly, chances of such incidents will be smaller... The aspects on which I insisted mostly about this punishments and have been said and re-said are the following:
1: First offence should never be treated with kick or ban
2: Admins must have a much deeper guideline about how they act , so kicking or banning which seems an easy solution should not be used so often
3: Admins & Players must decide on the new set of guidelines

I consider that a much detailed admin code is required so the differences between punishments for a certain infraction can be smaller.
- We must also understand the problems of both types of people involved in this game. A player can be driven by the fear of not winning, the urge to do things the easy way , and the feeling of hate for somebody who competes him.
- An admin can be tired, can have other things to do, can be upset or simply in a bad mood. Also , an admin can judge on memories and also in certain aspects ....the way people tell it counts. He can forget certain aspects, he can forgive certain aspects.

Understanding such aspects and thinking about them when designing a new set of rules and also an admin code cand make us have less incidents or even none...

[ST2]

I totally agree that the problem are on both examples I gave but skillfully you've ignored them! Which leads me to speculate that was intentional wrong admin behaviours to force the need of a "New set of punishments" or an attempt of signing a certificate of incompetence/irresponsibility. It's the same that say: Admins can't make a exempted judgment! And I'm not ignoring this fact... because it's a very serious one, as I stated above when presented only 2 situations of abuse (or not caring at all). I was very saddened by the lack of foresight in the situations previously presented (truly hope not more of this, but this ones I saw when I was online). Despite the fact that you'll need a set of punishments to who don't respect the "New set of punishments". Since players are humans, same as admins, there's no way of mechanize behaviours of both. And even in a single rule break there's several factors that can determine the punishment to apply. Unless the "New set of punishments" cover all possible rule breaks and players reactions after warned!
Talking about it and before I enter on 1st post suggestions, accordingly old and new ideias, where you place my 2nd example admin behaviour?

Now, the suggestions: We all know it's hard to quantify a rule break so, it's impossible to make a auto punishment. In each rule break type there's many levels of severity and ofc the recurrence factor. Just like game server rules, lets keep it the most comprehensive as possible leaving the always necessary space for admin judgment.
I agree with the states of Easy, Medium and Hard punishments but are already used by admins judgments NOW, I hope). Has I've stated above, there's no way of mechanize what punishments to apply. We all know the reasons of the expression "admins acting like the Gestapo" appear - examples are on my previous post!

On the other hand, define a "New set of punishments" only makes sense to players understand correctly saying what's the connection with current rules. Define punishments before rules are set makes no sense at all! No one asks to players if agree with punishments without they know what rules they must respect (if not the current ones - but if are... what's the connection). It's obvious! So, my last question: what's the relation with current rules and suggestions presented?

Edit: redundant question removed!

[gigarail]

The big question remains: When do you get a easy punishment or a hard punishment? That is off course also needed to know.

[alex879ro]

Well, that`s pretty obvious:  the idea is that most of the rule breaks can be treated with small punishments and banning should only be used in case of real necesity.