soapbox post - a plea to server admins

[Shok_Tinoktin]

Originally posted by Samuel Dravis

The problem is there's very, very few servers without admin mods. If the vast majority of the servers are running mods like that, odds are you aren't going to be able to easily find a server you like.

 

Reading the first post in this thread, it sure doesn't sound that way.

[Amidala from Chop Shop]

Originally posted by Shok_Tinoktin

the players who dont want to be abused by admin mods can play on servers that dont have the extra rules. that is the whole nature of having both. i dont see what the problem is, having both sounds win-win.

 

Again, if you read my post, I explain why that doesn't work.

 

1. The "honor" servers use coercion, humilation, and peer-pressure to convince new players that their way is the "right" way to play, and only "noobs" are "lamers". If they don't want to be a "noob", they need to learn and obey "the rules" that beetlebz listed. The new players are mostly kids who want to "fit in" and who are very suceptible to peer-pressure. They don't know that those "rules" are phony and made-up, especially if the last 3 servers they went to had similar rules. That causes the "honor" code follower's numbers to grow and the number of "honor" servers to increase, making it even more likely that the majority of servers that new AND veteran players will find are "honor" servers. It becomes a positive-feedback vicious cycle.

 

2. The "honor" players will go to "normal" servers and start whining and crying about "laming" and "chatkilling", often with lots of profanity and insults. They try to peer-pressure everyone into playing "the right way" according to their "rules".

 

By contrast, the "normal" players have no admin commands to humiliate "honor" players with. If an "honor" player starts crying and cursing about "laming", the other players might say "leave if you don't like it" but they don't try to intimidate and brainwash people. They are usually too busy playing and having fun, not obsessing about following and\or enforcing "rules" or "maintaining order".

 

Your theory of peaceful co-existence could work only if "honor" players didn't abuse players and brainwash new players to their way of playing, and if they didn't go to other servers and try to evangelize players to their way of thinking. But those things are exactly what "honor" players do.

[The Saxman]

hmmm,

 

Sounds like one solution to the problem would be to have someone start a server with two areas on it. One "Honor", one "Standard", and have them labeled such (telling players EXACTLY what's expected inside). With one concrete rule......anyone complaining about the rules gets booted. "Honor" people wouldn't be able to "whine", or try to "evangelize" new players. "Standard" people wouldn't be able to flame "Honor" people for having "Phony Rules". Like I said before I've never played "Out There" with all of you vets, but I still like the idea of PLAYER kept "Honor" systems. Like the one on my network, someone violates "Honor rules" and everyone attacks them. People who are interested in "Honor playing" will keep the "Rules" automatically without NEEDING admins, and "Standard" players will think its not fun and go the the "Standard" servers. If they start "whining" about it (either side), it gets them booted and they won't be fighting about it anymore. I don't really think anyone will like this idea, so I doubt it will be implemented. People like fighting otherwise we wouldn't have FPS games .

 

Oh well,

The Saxman

[TK-8252]

Sax, that sounds good in theory, but guess what - the "honor" servers won't comply. And labeling the "honor" servers wouldn't make less of them. It'd still be 99% of the "prison yard" servers. It makes no difference.

[Shok_Tinoktin]

I think Sax has it dead on. If the majority of players dont like "honor rules", than why wouldnt they keep to the non-honor servers. And why wouldn't the honor players comply. If they cant stand to play with "lamers", than why would they leave the honor servers. It just makes no sense, but like The Saxman, I'm gonna have to just say, "Oh well"

[TK-8252]

I see someone here isn't a veteran JO and JA player...

[The Saxman]

Originally posted by TK-8252

I see someone here isn't a veteran JO and JA player...

 

I've said twice now that I'm not!!

[Amidala from Chop Shop]

Originally posted by The Saxman

hmmm,

 

Sounds like one solution to the problem would be to have someone start a server with two areas on it. One "Honor", one "Standard", and have them labeled such (telling players EXACTLY what's expected inside).

 

Actually, the author of the most popular Jedi Academy admin mod tried to do just what you suggested, with one part of the map designated "free for all" and the rest "no laming". You can imagine why that wouldn't work: there is the problem of things spilling over the border or new players not understanding what is done where. But worse, suggestions like that show total lack of understanding of "real FFA". You can't confine it to one little area of a map, it takes away the movement and tactics that are part of real FFA.

 

It's like going to a football field and saying "football players, play only between the 20 and 40 yard lines over there. We're going to stand around and have a "whine"-and-cheese party and play badminton and croquet over here. And if someone goes for the ball and collides with someone chatting and sipping wine, we're going to amsleep-amslay-ampunish your sorry butt to teach you not to lame like a f*****g noob". Imagine how much fun it would be to try and play football under such ridiculous restrictions. Any self-respecting athlete would say "the hell with this, let's go shoot some hoops" (i.e. leave the game for good to play UT2004, Call of Duty, Far Cry, DOOM 3, Battlefront, etc. etc.).

 

So what do you end up left with? The wine-sipping, chatting, badminton and croquet players. Repeat this scenario over and over again and they become the "majority" in the game.

 

Now imagine some new kids with brand new footballs wander over to the football field. They are excited, because they had previously only played in their backyards (i.e. single-player game), but now they get to play on a real field (i.e. Internet game server). They see some people on the field and try to get a game going, throwing passes and trying to play with the people standing around on the field, playing like they did at home (i.e. single-player game). The next thing they know they are slammed to the ground by an invisible hand and can't move. One of the wine-sipping croquet players comes over and says "stop laming you f*****g noobs! Didn't you see that my badminton racquet was down! Playing football isn't allowed here! Can't you see we're playing croquet and badminton?!?!? F*****g noobs!" The new kids leave, but every football field they go to has the same rules and wine-sipping croquet and badminton players. Eager to fit in, they start sipping "whine", and playing croquet and badminton on the football field like "everyone else". The aren't experienced enough to realize it is total BS, so they join the "majority" of croquet and badminton players.

 

But they get bored of that, so they start spawning Rancors and Jawas and Wampas to relieve their boredom, but that's another story.

 

Anyway kids, that is the story of what happened to the great series of Jedi Knight games that began with Dark Forces, Kyle Katarn, and his guns (and no lightsaber), and ended with no guns, no Force, saber-dueling only amabusing "honor servers".

 

The End.

[The Saxman]

I didn't mean different areas of the same playing game (i.e. MAP). I meant different areas to GO TO for different games. Like i've said three times now ( ), I've never played on the internet, so I'm not quite sure how "servers" work.

 

I can see your point, though. That's what I said in my earlier post, that people wouldn't want to do something like that, so it wouldn't work. It was just a nice idea, even if it is a little unrealistic.