Too many people being banned! | Off Topic | Forum

gunnerling said
But you have to admit, since you started advertising, we have found some awesome players too. I mean take LightWarriorJ for example. Maybe we have hit a drew of bans. But how will we find the next, true Vetronian if we don't keep shifting through?

Edit: what did that new guy just say about my mother?!?!

its lightwarriork

LightWarriorK said

devilof98 said

gunnerling said
But you have to admit, since you started advertising, we have found some awesome players too. I mean take LightWarriorJ for example. Maybe we have hit a drew of bans. But how will we find the next, true Vetronian if we don't keep shifting through?

Edit: what did that new guy just say about my mother?!?!

its lightwarriork

 

Warning, another "epic LWK post" below.  This may be a little too "on-topic" for this thread or this subforum....

Anyways, I heartily agree there's too much banning going on, but I actually love how ban-happy the mods are.  It's VeteranCraft, not Griefern00bhappyfuntimeCraft.  The excessive banning is due to the overall immaturity of the Minecraft community and not our fault at all.  I'm personally very happy that like only 1-in-30 new members will stick around and be an asset.

Make no mistake, the average maturity of Minecrafters is about on the level of a pre-schooler on a playground.  No parents, authority figures are distracted or distant, and they haven't learned the consequences for their poor behavior yet.  I actually watched it devolve from my vantage point at the MCF.  It was right around the time that Minecraft was featured on JayisGames.com that I found it: http://jayisgames.com/archives.....ecraft.php, and I immediately joined the MCF.  About 2 months later, the term "griefing" was coined.  Kids were learning that they could jump from public server to public server, destroying and flooding everything in their path (this was when water and lava spread infinitely down and out).  Mods hadn't really started yet, and so there were no protections.  Multiplayer was a cruel lesson in anarchy.  Any builds of significance were built offline: http://www.minecraftforum.net/.....e-80-pics/

By the time the game and mods caught up to the community, the culture was set.  Minecraft was the place where kids could act like jerks without any real-world repercussions, and if they were banned, so what?  There are hundreds of thousands of public servers now where they can keep acting like jerks.  MCF won't endorse a global ban-list because they fear it might discourage sales of the game, and most servers don't use the MC Bans list because it is likely abused (there's no backcheck for entries).  So protecting the servers has fallen to the staff of the server, which is highly variable.  Trying to find a "good" server at random is like trying to find the prostitute in a redlight district without herpes.  

Still, there are good servers out there, and VC is certainly the best.  We're the $5000-a-night Companion, like Firefly's Inara. Classy and sexy and everyone who knows us wants to be with us....or ruin us.  The "good" servers are susceptible to different forms of abuse than the "bad" ones.

Keeping with the "pre-school playground" thing:

• "Sandcastle"  Jealousy - "If I can't make stuff this good then at least I can destroy it."
• "Bully"  Trolling - "Because it's fun to be a jerk, and I'm not really going to get in trouble for it."
• "Temper Tantrum"  n00bs - "I want to be good, but I don't want to learn, I want you to help me and give me stuff and hold my hand and tell me I'm great at this game and let me build dirt towers and share my account with my bratty little brother, and if you don't let me do what I want then I'm going to kick and scream!"
• "Booger Eater"  Hackers - "I know I'm not supposed to, but who does it hurt?"
• "Pyromaniac"  Griefers - "Destroying things is just more fun than building things."
• "Football Captain"  Power Grabber - "So, you think you're cool, huh?  Think your server is better than mine?  Think you're all bad because you can advertise?  Well who do you think you are?  I'm the biggest guy around, and I don't take kindly to you thinking you're all that.  Me and my buddies are going to come over an make you regret you took out that ad and invited us in without a whitelist, nerd."

Of course, there's a whole bunch of "higher" trolls as well.  I dealt with a lot of them on MCF.  The way meat has set up VC really keeps them from grabbing hold, which is really nice:

• "Sunday Dress"  Elitists - "Look, I'm just better than you.  And I'm important, so you have to do what I say and build where I say you can.  Just stay away from me, n00b."
• "King of the Hill"  Bosses - "See what I'm doing?  I'm the only one doing it right.  If you can't do this then you have to go build somewhere you won't be seen doing it."

Anyways, enough of that.  I think that especially with the new advertisement coming out, the server is going to see a lot more of these types.  For every one good player that says "Oooh, there's a server I can really get behind, there will be 10 players who might not be "bad" but who are still "playground pre-schoolers" because of their youth and immaturity, and another 20 players who see the ad as an invitation to Nero's Burning of Rome.  

So here is my idea (if this needs to be moved to Suggestions, let me know):

• Reconstruct the original spawn so that it's more pleasing, although not so much as to be distracting.  A mineshaft that players want to escape is more likely to have signs that aren't read, but if players are encouraged to linger they might read the required information first.
• Players entering the spawn should be greeted with a clear declaration:
  • Welcome to VeteranCraft!  READ THE RULES.  Not knowing the Rules won't excuse you from them!
• Rewrite the signs around original spawn to be more clear, so as to head off the pre-school mentalities.  Signs saying:
  • You ARE being Watched!  Yes, right now.  Here's a link to the DynMap.  Everyone just saw you get on.  Hi!
  • Griefing and Stealing is recorded.  You WILL be BANNED!
  • Cheating and Hacking is alerted to Staff.  Instant BAN.
  • Cursing, advertising, and otherwise spamming the chat....Instant BAN.
  • Be nice, be mature.  We don't care if you're still a kid.  YOU are responsible for YOU, no one else.
• Balance that with positive messages:
  • Build anywhere that is available, once you leave Vetropolis!
  • Staff is friendly and willing to help!
  • Visit Portal Ships to reach the wilds easier!
  • etc.
• Create a "contract room," before they can leave the spawn area.
  • If the Bookshelf Mod is approved by frelling for use, have written books with copies of the Rules and Guidelines in  a shelf, so they don't even have to go to the website.  Place it so that it's impossible to not pass by.
  • There was another mod, like SignLink, where users click on a sign and the urls to the site, DynMap, forums, rules, and guides are parsed into their chat, it would be even better.
  • A redstone door, which is opened by a button below a sign saying "I agree to ALL the Rules and Guidelines, on penalty of BAN."  The door stays open for about five seconds per press, so it's unlikely that more than one person would get through per press, unless they're playing together and then have no excuse.
  • A sign just on the other side of the door, "Now remember the Rules, and HAVE FUN!  Welcome to VeteranCraft!"

Personally, I don't mind being harsh in the spawn.  Anyone who would feel that it's actually oppressive would be the ones who would entertain doing what they're being told not to do, and would probably have to be banned in the end anyways.  And making them go through the "contract room" removes any liability from the server that they weren't made aware of the rules.

After all that, I would recommend getting some better wayfinding around Vetropolis ASAP, particularly to the Portal Ships, Rail Station, and Portal Building.  I would also recommend that the "newbie kit" they're spawned with contain a minecart, if it doesn't already.

[/two shillings]

great post. i just dont see y u quoted mine.

LightWarriorK said
I quoted you because you helped correct gunn.  I was smiling AT you.  But was then necessary to quote my massive post? 

Here's two more.

yes because its funny to see ur post. and than my 5 word response