Baldric wrote:
I can't look at General Discussion because it is not viewable.
I'm not pretending players weren't jerks to each other on the forums. Sometimes people were jerks in the game, too. I just reject the idea that this is was the main reason SK's player base has gotten smaller. I'm not buying it. It's like reason #4.
If we're in agreement that people were being pretty constant jerks to each other, it continued to exist even after GD was taken down, and we're seemingly even in agreement that it was a problem for us maintaining and gaining players, then the rest is kind of just extra words. If it is a number one answer for me, but in your family feud scoreboard it's a 4, it still is/was a real problem.
Something that is overlooked though is that this is a problem that impacts and makes any other problem that involves any interpersonal interaction much more severe. Every off-hand remark spent denigrating the game, the staff, and other players just further poisoned the well. At one point, I simply wanted people to share a bit about themselves to make the staff a bit more personable, in the misguided assumption that putting a personality to the staff slot would humanize and make people take a step back. Instead I got the joy of digging in and seeing every single shred of personal information ever offered up basically just used as a weapon later on, I couldn't blame anyone for being hesitant in sharing anything else. There used to be things like events where players and staff got together to hang out and [REDACTED] together, and then even that was turned into a way to further attack people.
You might have other issues that you rank higher, and I'm completely okay with that because there are always other issues, but I doubt any of them aren't at least impacted by the way everyone treated and continue to treat each other. Shattered Kingdoms isn't a game you can actually win, it's a co-operative RP environment with mechanics that allow for combat to be used as a method of conflict resolution and some measure of skill, but there are still to this day players who measure their success or failure on how much they ruined someone else's character plans. That sucks, and I don't have a good answer, but I know all the people denying there has ever been a problem are specifically hurting things, not helping.
I can speak for myself and say some punishments in the past may have been a bit much, but I also think a whole lot of infractions that should have been pursued in the past simply weren't at all for a multitude of different reasons. Neither excuses the other of course, but I think painting a picture of some kind of one-way street does a disservice to the entire conversation. In only my opinion, we absolutely went too easy on a lot of players due to their perceived value to the game, and the rabble rousing backlash punishing the obvious violation would incur. It's like telling a small child they aren't allowed to have cookies before dinner, and you keep catching them stealing cookies to eat, but do nothing as the cookie has already been eaten. When the small child continues to steal cookies due to the lack of punishment and spoils their dinner, and then they get severely punished for not finishing their dinner, whose fault is it? The child who was breaking the rules willingly? The parent who spared the rod, effectively encouraging the negative behavior? I'd say it's probably the parent's fault, but at the same time none of our players are children either, and shouldn't need to be treated as such.
To use a real-world example, there was an incident that looked like probable EQ off-loading. Upon investigation, every single player that was involved was relatively stand-up, everything seemed to check out, and while a questionable situation it didn't seem to be worthy of any kind of classic punishment. I basically just wanted to get rid of the equipment in question, as if it had been a junk loot instead of a full loot, because if there HAD been a junk loot it wouldn't have even been something brought to my attention. Anger, requests for much harsher punishments, etc. It wasn't about any kind of restorative justice, re-establishing a fair playing field. It was about retributive justice, punishing the people who had wronged them, and in their estimation the game. To this day, I'm not entirely sure I made the right decision, but I'm fine with the decision I made because I thought it was the best decision for the game, and one that would put the matter to rest as quickly as possible and let people get back to you know, having fun.
I don't want you to think I'm piling on you, or anything like that, I just think our relationships with each other inform our decision making more than any of us like to admit. I also think while some players are absolutely seen as "problem players" it's generally because they actually were a problem, and kept putting us in situations similar to the one I described. How many times can you tell a player who feels abused by another player for OOC reasons that they did enough RP, and to handle it in-character? What about when they still do enough RP, but it's two new characters that just happen to be in conflict again? It's nice when "problem players" are dumb enough to make their intentions completely clear by logging off one character to instagib someone on an alt, but the reality is it's rarely that cut and dry.
TLDR: If we were all better to each other to begin with, problem players would have never been a problem, rules enforcement actions would never have needed to take place, and input from players would have probably been better received when it came to other changes. Our poor attitudes and behaviors as a player base actively made most of the other things people point at as issues much, much worse.