Basic fair play rules

[Pingu]

This is a relocated follow-up of this post and couple of following ones :
http://www.vortexwars.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1598&start=670#p44533

The "official" VW rulebook does not contain any statement about fairplay, except maybe for the right of not being trolled by people using multiple accounts. You all know another issue is secret allies (which is exactly the same as double account players for all opponents), and we are lacking means to fight them efficiently.

Try and think about your early VW age. You discovered that online game, tried it as a guest, maybe tried the how to play tutorial, then started a few games in which you barely realized this is multiplayer (and not computer opponents). Then you created an account, started to learn the basics, and realized more and more that strategy is a big part of it, not just luck.

So you try to improve your strategy, and alliances can prove helpful in that matter. One day you have what you think is a great, new, secret, nasty idea : an alliance not known from other players. How great ! You try it at once, and you maybe got successful a couple of times until you started to get trouble (all players getting mad and allying against you and your mate) or become occasionally a victim of it too and find much less fun in it (actually you've been trapped like this earlier but were not aware of it before you were smart enough to imagine this yourself). Then you teach yourself fair play and progressively become a skilled, respected player.

What's wrong in this typical player evolution ? Can't we avoid some of its worst parts ? I think we can... Spoil the "bad good" idea : teach it to newcomers, and explain them that
secret allying or double accounting is:
- bad unfair mean and more
- forbidden
- worth some problems with moderators (yes, there are) if you get caught
- worth many problems with other players in any case

Alliances are to be anounced to all players at game start.

Put this in How to play tutorial, and / or (even better) put this in level-up splash screen, whithin 10 first levels. We could by the way put here all hints that we don't have time to read at loading time when the game is in cache. This makes sense, as you level up pretty often when low level (when you might need new hints), and when higher level you don't get these as often but you know them already.

I know we will not avoid all bad things this way. But the effort should not be huge, and if we can avoid some percentage of it already, that'd be fine.

Any support to that suggestion ?

[Ratburntro44]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... _your_nose

[Pingu]

Do you really think imagination is the only thing that limits more people doing this ? I am pretty convinced all players will sooner or later get the idea, by themselves or seing others do it. I thought about that argument when posting, but really considered it as irrelevant.

The biggest issue is really all people doing it unpunished, so that beginners not only discover this, but tend to believe it is admitted, and might be the best way to play this game as higher level are doing it. Who is saying anything else ? Not a single mention about fair play and alliance is made, anywhere.

Note that, among the many players I tried to "teach" fairplay to when I caught them secret allying, a significant part of them (half maybe) admitted that might not be a great idea, as they did not fully think from the other's point of view before. I've met again some of them and they became mostly fair players.

Look at a small child playing with mates : fair play has to be teached, actively. If you let players guess their own way, I'm not sure the vast majority is going to chose the fair one... Well obviously it's not...

[Ratburntro44]

I certainly don't think it is, but it would be much better to simply say to use common sense and be fair than to enumerate specific, individual rules.

[Pingu]

Relying on common sense is pretty much same as letting each one guess its own way. It's fine as long as you have common sense

Apart from that, I really think secret alliance is the worst you can do about (un)fair play, I don't think we'd have to enumerate tons of rules (except for general behavior rules that are already in the Rulebook forum topic).

Apart from Rat, any one else around having an opinion about the above suggestion ?

[royalblue]

Is anyone else having an opinion about this?... What a novel way to put it.. can I borrow that?

Either way, here's my opinion:
If you leave two children a rewarding prize in plain reach with no real punishment and the unspoken reassurance of a large community of their peers, they are probably going to take it at least a few times (no matter how often a penguin tells them not to).

And it's actually easier than that; the most punishment is to be removed from a game they obviously cared about very little about. They don't care if we sit here, somewhere across the globe from them, and frown at their username.

So if I were admin, I would look at what makes it so appealing and fix it based on that rather than just adding more mods to do the same thing.

-Rewarding prize: We all know that there's no real correspondance between this game and real life. And yet people want to win various virtual rewards to make themselves look superior such as level and shards but most of all pure reputation which in this case is rating. Not saying get rid of it, but alter at the least.

-Punishment: It's not that we don't have it, but that they don't see it. They never believe they'll get caught. Even if it doesn't do much, it at east deters them if they know they lose that superiority quickly (or see it as a very real possibility). There needs to be a punishment if it even seems likely and a ban if proven. TF2 and Tony being examples, not only should they have been dealt with, but also used as proof of enforcement with more public punishment (to be crude, like putting a criminal in the stocks).

-Support: As said above, no one sees the legal system happening which is great for baiting potential criminals in singular but encourages them here. We don't even have guidelines in the game itself besides how to play. Even if it's implied, it still steals momentum from the 'noncheating' reasoning.

We, sadly, can't stop the problem completely, but by focusing on what makes it happen, we could make it better.