<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] RE:Troublemakers and their M.O. --> <!--X-From-R13: Yriva Epbgg Zbaqba <ybaqbaNpf.hgx.rqh> --> <!--X-Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 10:15:32 -0800 --> <!--X-Message-Id: Pine.GSO.4.10.10003301027210.17065-100000#nala,cs.utk.edu --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: 38E24136.BB804362#yahoo,com --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, Re: [MUD-Dev] RE:Troublemakers and their M.O.</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:london#cs,utk.edu"> </head> <body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000"> <font size="+4" color="#804040"> <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong> </font> <br> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] <br clear=all><hr> <!--X-Body-Begin--> <!--X-User-Header--> <!--X-User-Header-End--> <!--X-TopPNI--> Date: [ <a href="msg00796.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00797.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00792.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00797.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00795">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00795">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00795">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>Re: [MUD-Dev] RE:Troublemakers and their M.O.</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: Re: [MUD-Dev] RE:Troublemakers and their M.O.</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: Kevin Scott London <<A HREF="mailto:london#cs,utk.edu">london#cs,utk.edu</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 10:46:19 -0500 (EST)</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> <LI><em>Sender</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev-admin#kanga,nu">mud-dev-admin#kanga,nu</A></LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> On Wed, 29 Mar 2000, Aaron Leslie wrote: > Where do you go from here? All of the standard dikuesque punishments have > failed, and worse, backfired when you learn > that his quieter moments are actually the result of his characters being played > by friends (who are actually decent sorts) and > you have punished them harshly for something relatively minor, thinking they had > priors on the offense. These guys also log > from each other's ip's, so keeping track of just who is doing what becomes a > project all of it's own. > > What alternatives to banning can you suggest in a case like this, a case far to > common in my experience. I think there are several ways you can deal with the problem player without going to a total ban of the site. I have implemented several measures in smaug that go beyond the standard diku punishment scheme. The problem I see is you have several types of players and you have to deal with them according to their "personality", an example is the eq player, the eq player spends their whole time bettering their eq, making new chars to amass an army, etc... They are the easiesit to control, a slay/purge or destroying one of their characters (We use balzhur which sets them to level 2 and destroys their equipment), it usually enough to punish this type and keep them from doing things again. Of course the above example is in an extreme case, I wouldn't just destroy the char because they spammed channels once. The next type of character enjoys roleplaying and doesn't care about the eq, the best way to deal with them is silence, removing social type skills from them because that is what they care about, the final player doesn't care about any of those things and is the hardest to deal with, I have come up with the following scheme to deal with those players: On Realms of Despair, I wrote a code called nuisance, you can set it for a certain power level and a time it will last. The code then picks a time to reach the power level so that the sentance gets progressively worse. Some of the things it does at the highest level is, messes up your commands, you type chat Hey guys and a percentage of the time you get Huh? depending on the power level set this could be occasionaly or up to 90% of the time, it adds delays to simulate lag, makes you cast defensive spells on your opponent and offensive spells on yourself, and many more small "nuisances". This type of punishment usually discourages a player and they leave, however a true problem player will just make another character. To that you can use delay to make it look like he/she is lagged and this is often enough to get them to go to another place. Ok so nusiance didn't work and we are back to ban, I rewrote ban to be a bit more flexible. First it has a warn level, which won't ban an IP but send a log to a warn channel that x has just logged in from that IP. Which allows you to watch the individual and step in before he/she makes too much of an ass of themself. Then I added levels on the bans (or maybe that is standard diku, been so long since I rewrote the code I can't remember) and timeframes. So when I ban a place I tend to ban it at level 1 which will prevent any new characters from being made while allowing the old players access, and then ban it for 2 days. After 2 days is up, the ban is removed automatically and sometimes the process starts again. I have found a newbie ban for 2-5 days is 95% effective in preventing the problem player. They may be back, but they are so used to be banned for 30+ days they normally don't return soon and when they do you can always ban the site for a couple more days. If they have high level characters that get by the ban, that is when it becomes appropriate to destroy those characters. Kevin London _______________________________________________ MUD-Dev mailing list MUD-Dev#kanga,nu <A HREF="http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev">http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev</A> </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="00792" HREF="msg00792.html">[MUD-Dev] RE:Troublemakers and their M.O.</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> Aaron Leslie <silrathi#yahoo,com></LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00796.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Trouble Makers or Regular Citizens</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00797.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] RE:Troublemakers and their M.O.</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00792.html">[MUD-Dev] RE:Troublemakers and their M.O.</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00797.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] RE:Troublemakers and their M.O.</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00795"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00795"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <!--X-BotPNI-End--> <!--X-User-Footer--> <!--X-User-Footer-End--> <ul><li>Thread context: <BLOCKQUOTE><UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00801" HREF="msg00801.html">[MUD-Dev] World and History Creation</A></strong>, Ling <a href="mailto:ling#kanga,nu">ling#kanga,nu</a>, Fri 31 Mar 2000, 01:02 GMT <LI><strong><A NAME="00800" HREF="msg00800.html">[MUD-Dev] ADMIN: Spam filters and being unsubscribed</A></strong>, J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw#kanga,nu">claw#kanga,nu</a>, Fri 31 Mar 2000, 00:35 GMT <LI><strong><A NAME="00794" HREF="msg00794.html">[MUD-Dev] ScryMUD 2.0.11 released.</A></strong>, Ben Greear <a href="mailto:greearb#candelatech,com">greearb#candelatech,com</a>, Thu 30 Mar 2000, 04:17 GMT <LI><strong><A NAME="00792" HREF="msg00792.html">[MUD-Dev] RE:Troublemakers and their M.O.</A></strong>, Aaron Leslie <a href="mailto:silrathi#yahoo,com">silrathi#yahoo,com</a>, Thu 30 Mar 2000, 04:00 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00795" HREF="msg00795.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] RE:Troublemakers and their M.O.</A></strong>, Kevin Scott London <a href="mailto:london#cs,utk.edu">london#cs,utk.edu</a>, Thu 30 Mar 2000, 18:15 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00797" HREF="msg00797.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] RE:Troublemakers and their M.O.</A></strong>, Baldur Norddahl <a href="mailto:bbn#nkdev,dk">bbn#nkdev,dk</a>, Thu 30 Mar 2000, 18:15 GMT </LI> </UL> <UL> <li><Possible follow-up(s)><br> <LI><strong><A NAME="00798" HREF="msg00798.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] RE:Troublemakers and their M.O.</A></strong>, Sellers, Michael <a href="mailto:MSellers#maxis,com">MSellers#maxis,com</a>, Thu 30 Mar 2000, 19:24 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00803" HREF="msg00803.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] RE:Troublemakers and their M.O.</A></strong>, Kevin Scott London <a href="mailto:london#cs,utk.edu">london#cs,utk.edu</a>, Fri 31 Mar 2000, 01:02 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00799" HREF="msg00799.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] RE:Troublemakers and their M.O.</A></strong>, Chris Jacobson <a href="mailto:fear#technologist,com">fear#technologist,com</a>, Thu 30 Mar 2000, 19:24 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL></BLOCKQUOTE> </ul> <hr> <center> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] </center> <hr> </body> </html>