Time for NO to Upsize

[darlingBri]

So the game is out of beta, it's attracting new players at a steady pace, and Theoris is growing nicely. With this comes the usual growing pains of any online community, namely griefing and abuse.

Currently, I'm sitting in General being called a whore by a L1 player (god of your mom) spamming the snot out of the chat with a link to an adult site. That's broadly fine - it happens, I'm certainly not wounded, but it's also the 3rd time in five days that I've been in chat and something like this has happened.

I dug up and sent an email the first time but I have no idea what the outcome of that was. The real issue is that there is no button to report him, no way to block him, and no GM to call. There is no way for players to police the community guidelines we all agreed to at sign up, and NO is just too big now for that to be the case.

There is an active, dedicated community of regulars here who would all be willing to mod chat and forums on a set schedule on a volunteer basis. It seems silly of TM not to take advantage of that.

It would be very nice to see:

• 24/7 mods in chat
• Available GMs
• Report Player button

These are pretty standard for a gaming community of any size, and are surely in the TM plans, yes?

[Asterix~]

I'm sure those are in the NO master plan.

Assuming there is one. (which gets less likely every day that passes)

Then again, 24/7 mods means paying people. GMs mean paying people. Report player button is nice, but how much would that be abused?

[darlingBri]

I'm sure those are in the NO master plan.

Assuming there is one. (which gets less likely every day that passes)

Then again, 24/7 mods means paying people. GMs mean paying people.

Neither 24/7 mods nor GMs mean paying people. Plenty of us would volunteer.

[Asterix~]

Volunteering isn't professional, and I'm fairly sure its illegal since TM isn't a non-profit organization.

TM is a company. Many people seem to forget that. Mods, GMs, developers, artists, programmers, and anyone who works on their project needs to go to their meetings and work with them. Its called a job.

Oh and honestly, upsizing isnt likely for a game of this style. How long do you think it will be before most everyone has completed the game? There is an end to this game. If you have 4 level 22 cities, what do you do? I realize thats not going to happen for a month or two, but two months is nothing.

[darlingBri]

You don't need to be a non-profit to have volunteers. Plenty of online games have them, as do massive numbers of forums. That's a non-factor.

[Amun Nefer]

Hi Darling, oh Mistress (in the good sense) of the Wiki. I've noticed the little wanks coming out. The best thing to do is PM Reed with the times and a description of what happened.

Oi! I see it. "god of your mom" around 1:25AM. PM Reed with a wee description and the time frame. There's a few violations there of the Rules that person agreed to. Rules 3, 4 and 10.

Well I think the thing is that when the game started we didn't have these problems. NO is the island of civility and class (as in classy behaviour) in a sea of rudeness and trolls. Also, Reed isn't very fond of banning people from what I can see.

Lol, yeah but the problem with that is they might get drunk with power. Making people mods who want to be mods is a bad idea for that reason. Also the fact that they can use it on players they really dislike. Then again, this would be under Reed's and maybe Jeff's supervision so in the end the decision of what to do would be their's so maybe it's a different story. In the meantime though since it's not twice daily or anything I think Reed is more than suited for the job.

Lol, people would just see that as a police force. We're kinda laid back here mostly. Do you mean General or Trade? People can't be switching back and forth so much. O.O (believe me I try it. XD)

TM NEVER reveals their secrets. So they might be and they might not be, we'll just have to wait for the next update. Remember everything costs money though.

Edit: Wow, a whole convo popped up while I was typing. XD

[Asterix~]

You don't need to be a non-profit to have volunteers. Plenty of online games have them, as do massive numbers of forums. That's a non-factor.

I can't name a single online game thats run by an actual company and uses volunteers, and if you can, links would be nice.

Regardless, my second point still stands, and volunteers are too unpredictable.

[Amun Nefer]

ATITD does I think. They're pretty chill there.

[Asterix~]

ATITD does I think. They're pretty chill there.

I am proven wrong, but my point still stands.

[darlingBri]

Regardless, my second point still stands, and volunteers are too unpredictable.

Your premise fails. If you cannot name any games with volunteer moderators, you cannot know that they are unpredictable.

[Asterix~]

Of course volunteers are unpredictable. Thats a given, especially when its online. Its so easy to simply disappear from online life with absolutely no consequences. Now if it was a real life volunteer its different.

And why does my premise fail? Incase you didn't notice, there are other areas that use volunteers other then gaming.

Then again, I can think of examples of player-run servers that are totally volunteer based and manage to succeed. I suppose it all depends on reliability of management and dedication.

[Deguar]

TBH I don't see much need for the introduction of online moderation/report buttons/ignore buttons or other tools because I don't agree with one premise.

That the game has a growing customer base, it may be attracting new people to it but just as many are giving up on it.

Therois has been open for over eight weeks now and apart from the necessary server load balancing there hasn't been any updates. It took me four months back on Sabah to get to the point of being able to start a fourth city, yet in those eight weeks there are already people with the wherewithal to start one.

More to the point Theoris currently has an overall account population of 5618, which is roughly the number that Sabah had at it's peak eight weeks ago. Even more disturbing is the fact that the actual number of players is much lower. If you look at the rankings of players with level three/four cities, which is acheivable in a few days, you will find that they are around the 3000-4000 mark. In addition once you get past about 250s/n you start seeing swathes of empty spots/orange,red,grey inactive cities and once you hit 300s/n you are down to only a few active cities. If you look further and start considering people who have used at least one scarab the number of players drops down to merely 2000.

It looks more to me that Theoris and Nile Online are stagnating, and honestly I'm starting to wonder if it will even be here in another month or two. Market prices are already starting to dip underneath opportunity cost and as people start ramping up towards fourth/immortality that will just get worse.

[abana]

The problem is, the good ones are leaving in greater numbers than more are joining, being replaced by kids that swear and are abusive on the wall.

I see the same abuse and language on a public bus. I never would have dared use the same language or be as rude, whether I knew anyone or not. Whether they had any authority or not.

But I don't think that there is any need for 24/7 moderating of the wall, although we can't see it, I suspect that TM has a record of everything that has been said on the wall since it's inception. I would like a report button. Until that happens, you can copy/paste the offending posts and send them in a PM to Reed, it might take a while for the effect, but I am sure that it will be dealt with. Although TM might be able to add an employee/intern to handle it. I think that it might also be better to take something away in game than to delete the account. "Because of this post "...", 200 (fill in the blank) have been removed from you city.

[Ramzez]

Nile is dead at the moment, and theres only so much neglect a community can take. I agree entirely with your post.

[joshofet]

Ignore them. Did they steal your wallet, did they flash knives, are you afraid they'll hurt your cat? It's not RL, and even there it is questionable whether policing in the way proposed will help solve the problem.

This is the game, get used to it, or look for something different if it starts boring you. It doesn't seem it will ever attract tens of thousands of players, so don't expect TM to invest heavily. There is life in Sabah and Theoris is developing fast, but it will never be like Sabah in the early days again, not if you played that.

[Ramzez]

josh I'm [& OP I'm sure] not referring to just this policy. Its been almost 2 months since Nile left beta. There are still many bugs, discovered, and I'm sure many not discovered; there has been no updates, or any mention of any updates, despite the game being broken in many aspects; there isn't much support to speak about, as has been outlined.

[Czech Centurian]

Maybe everyone is working on the new Hinterland?

[Tinkerbell]

The very worst thing that TM could possibly do is have volunteer mods. Especially most of the players in this thread.

Nile Online Scribe Wall posts scroll off the bottom of the screen very quickly & are gone. The shelf life of painful poster is very short. Do not feed the energy creatures.

If you don't like something, tell them you don't like it live & in living color. Report it if you must. Then, please, get a life. <ducking>

... so many Nazis, so little time...

EDIT: By the way, some of the worst possible insults are made with pretty language or by the "acceptable" gangs we have on the various walls (or here on the forum). I find it amazing that players key on only specific words.

[Deguar]

Maybe everyone is working on the new Hinterland?

That's really the million dollar question isn't it

However an online game depends on regular updates, especially bug fixes and monitoring the social tools for abuse of the TOS. As well as new content, plus interviews/reviews/other online promotion style activites and generally developer time.

Unlike a stand alone game which you can push out the door and forget about with a few post release patches to resolve any serious bugs/game balance issues.

Currently NO feels more like a stand alone game which is considered "finished"

[Keith]

Volunteering isn't professional, and I'm fairly sure its illegal since TM isn't a non-profit organization.

No it isn't illegal, but there may be some sort of legal issue in regards to compensating volunteers.

Sierra (which no longer exists as a publisher) ran its boards with volunteer moderators. I was one of them for 10 years. We didn't get paid, but we did get some compensation. Every four months we could pick four games from list of those available.