A system like this was already in the works, and about quarter-done, back in 2010-ish. I forgot if my computer broke down, or the scripts got jumbled up, and then a month later I lost my train of thought. Something similar was starting to go in the works in 2017, but was also abandoned. But this time I did this start to finish in a week.
Well, in a way this might not have been a priority, since in the last year or two we've had very few incidents. But still, we currently rely on a Google Spreadsheet to keep track of what warnings/penalties someone got in the past. And sending a warning, or assigning a penalty means a lot of paperwork, which nobody likes.
This system makes things much better
- Simpler: target a player, assign a penalty, and voila they get teleported into jail, and also receive a notification why, see progress of the penalty.
- Searchable: no need to get player's account Id, then open browser, and search various spreadsheets for that ID. We can now target a player and see their history right away.
- Ready for the future: although not yet supported, it's built so that there can be voting by the players, to for example disable chat for someone. That's why the notification message doesn't say "message from staff" but "message from a moderator". Yes I know, there's potential for exploiting the system, so this will have to be carefully thought out.
- Most of all, it's integrated all into the shard. For example, if there's a rule that says "only people with a clear record can join the mentor society", the signup stone can now do a quick check on the player's history. Where before, staff would have to get involved and manually process each request.
Legacy/compatibility notes:
Any tasks assigned before this system was added, still remain. The systems work side-by-side, so as you complete Jail tasks, it will first count down the remaining tasks in the old system, then count them down in the new system, until it's all zero and you can leave.
Since there were so few issues in the last year or two, I will not be importing old stuff from the Google Spreadsheets. But for a while, we will still be checking the history there in cases of more serious rule breaking.
Restriction graunlarity
The penalties system is completely new, but the rules on the Codex still need updating. So for a while, we will be still using the old rules until they are rewritten.
One important concept in the new system is the ability to restrict just parts of the game. For example, someone adding price in the descriptions on vendor items, might just be restricted from setting the description. Or someone who has been kill-stealing repeatedly, but otherwise had no issues with other parts of the game, might get some jailtime/jailtasks, but then also a longer term restriction to engage in combat on any creature, if there's another player nearby (unless they're partied or teamed).
Granular restrictions that already work, and will likely be used soon:
- Chatban from just public chat. A player with this restriction can still send messages to guildchat or send private messages to players who have them on their friends list. Being jailed (either jail tasks or jail time) also automatically includes this restriction.
- Vendor descriptions: cannot set item description on vendor, or change existing description, but can remove an existing description.
- The assigned restriction time can either be the regular delay (e.g. 48 hours, starting with when the penalty is given), or is only counted down when player is actively playing (e.g. 10 hours of active gametime). We often come to a situation when things have already blown over, and the players are about to log off or already have, and maybe they weren't going to be on for the next 2 days anyway. So in this case, setting a chatban for 72 hours can either be too steep for an active player, or something irrelevant for someone who won't be online for the next couple of days anyway.
Here's a screenshot of the notification gump... which I hope you won't ever get to see yourself directly
- moderation system notification gump.png (26.98 KiB) Viewed 9683 times
- Carzikan
- Ed-Boy
- FartyMcBoogaBalls
- Fivefingers
- Parabellum
- Pirla
- Praise
I'm looking forward to testing gameplay stuff that's more fun, after the remaining technical/infrastructural systems are done.
