Managing Griefing: Could Discourse forum methods be adapted for the game?

General
21

How about this instead:

Over time, players become more trusted via the means you described and as a byproduct then have access to a world regeneration ability that speeds the regrowth of the natural landscape around them. Additionally, this trust level allows for travel to more worlds.

Do not limit building, that will just frustrate those who actually want to work on grand things initially. Do, however, make it so that people must explore a bit, like you said, before they can modify the world.

Additionally, a beacon should take a lot of time and effort to achieve. The fastest way to dissuade is to make something take time and effort.

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22

You shouldn’t assume that placing and retrieving beacons is free. We’ve discussed internally not allowing this. Say it costs 10 points to place a beacon, you’d only get 5 back when you remove it. This would mean that you can’t use beacons as a tool for evil without burning through your allowance.

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23

I was simply stating that if a player has to place one beacon to fulfill the first trust level or place so many that its probably not going to be extremely hard to do so and that if the play gets said level and wants to grief that this idea as it is now will probably not stop that

So the player could fulfill the building requirement and the traveling ones and go griefing kind of like they do now

Was not assuming they didn’t cost merely that there not impossible to make and a system like this could possibly limit honest players more then griefers

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24

yes it should be still possible for new players to get invited inside a beacon and build as they obviously have the trust from their friends

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25

So, to restate the problem:

  1. There are a small number of players who get a thrill from destroying the hard work of others.
  1. They use a variety of methods, including rapidly spawning and/or destroying blocks.
  2. They generally will only act if alone on the server, so they don’t get caught (no witnesses).
  3. They will abuse any implemented anti-griefing measures against other players if possible.
  4. Griefers are hard to track as griefing doesn’t look different in the system from normal building/mining.

To me, having a universal trust level system inside a game could feel a little Orwellian, and might hurt the gameplay experience. Could we dissolve the ideas into the game world somehow? Some ideas:

  1. Requiring players to purchase a “building permit” per world. Assuming that each world has a RPG-village-like Capital with shops and places to rest and whatnot, perhaps players are prohibited from placing any blocks until they have checked in at the Capital and purchased a permit (readily available, not expensive). The same could be done for a mining permit.
    Further developing this idea, perhaps permits are only required within a 1000-block radius of the Capital. This would distinguish between “safe” lands and “wild” lands.
  2. Tweaking the beacon system.
    • Tie beacon size directly to cost, allowing players to build smaller beacons earlier.
    • Give beacons an additional radius that caps building from other players until they place their own beacon (“You cannot place that many blocks this close to a player beacon”)
    • Allow placed beacons to be expanded over time at some cost
  3. Add a “security camera” prop. Not actually a camera, but a placed prop that logs all users that pass within a certain radius (“guest book”). Can only be accessed by the owner. Visible deterrent to griefers as it becomes known that it will take your name down.
    Possibly also records activity, e.g. “12:17PM user DarkRepulsor placed 23 blocks destroyed 4”
  4. Add an “acknowledge user” mechanic. There’s this retail theft-prevention idea that if you let customers know you are aware of them, it helps the buying experience, but also lets potential thieves know they are being monitored. Perhaps a special NPC drone can be spawned into areas that have high grief reports – something tough-looking that just follows greets players, follows them around, and generally looks like it’s keeping an eye on the place. A security drone, if you will.
    Basically a mobile, dev-owned version of the security camera in #3 that talks to players and says things like “Greetings, DarkRepulsor. Your presence has been logged. Enjoy your stay.”

I’ll keep adding to this list, thoughts?

Other references:
Preventing Retail Theft
Preventing Vandalism

4 Likes
26

That’s definitely open to griefing. You build something, then a griefer comes along and places that quick regen block. I personally can’t think of a way that would allow the legitimate players to place it without it also being an easy way for a griefer to remove a build.

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27

I think that isn’t a bad idea. Also I strongly believe in groups moderating themselves. Creating clean-up crews and moderators.

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28

also what some call griefing is another ones art all is very subjective unless it is very obvious

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29

this one is actually a good idea as you prevent from people going to harass others just by placing a beacon next to yours

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30

‘‘It is a monumement dedicated to lust and human carnal desires. i can do what i want!’’

but for the actual subject? i would say eh. if world regen is going to regen anything outside beacons anyways, in time, then why bother? its quite the turnoff for a griefer knowing that people will just ignore what he has done and it will be gone a few days / weeks after.

also assuming you need to move a certain distance from the starting point on the world. lets say 50 blocks, what would happen if you leave a warp to a new world, you have no grappling hook, you spawned in a hole, and you cannot climb up because the blocks are too highly stacked? what then?

i think having some sort of appointed mods/highly regarded players ingame that could look at beacons and report them somehow would be a good idea, also i think there should be some sort of data, so a mod can see who placed a certain block, hence making finding griefers extremely easy.

this is just how i view it atleast.

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31

why not just use trusted players for this?

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32

in my opinion if you know it takes a long time to generate I just stop playing as it has a negative effect on creativity

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33

Good ideas.

I think number 1 works well, but could be liiiiitle more expensive if needed only close to Capital so ““people with more dedication”” would put that space in good use and if it´s next to free and only to be needed near Capital… wouldn’t it be the same to have or not to have that system. If you would need it to be able built something, then it would reduce number of random blocks on ground/environment and flying golden hot dogs (or something more nastier). Certain free block placement would be needed as how else people could build bridge to cross river or something.

Security camera would be awesome anti-griefing method, but I´m not developer so I don´t know if it´s possible.

Number 4 is little bit silly :stuck_out_tongue: Not that it would be awful idea, but I cannot see something like in Oort.

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35

I think one of the keys here is that in most minecraft griefing videos I’ve seen they convince the OWNER of the server to give them ADMIN access and/or creative mode

In Oort the owner of the server is Wonderstruck, I don’t think that they will be giving admin access to random people they talk to over skype

also it will be MUCH harder to do anything big without the infinity mode (which I asume isn’t a permanent part of the game)
If a griefer has to spend 50 hours mining up blocks in order to grief someone… Well most griefers don’t have that kind of patience because griefing is a pleasure that is “in the moment”

2 Likes
36

I think once the game really gets going and there are more than four people online at one time, there will be less griefing. Right now there are just too few people to catch them. That and infinite resources. Once the griefers have to actually work for their stone, they will probably be less inclined to waste it.

Forcing people to gain “trust” might actually hinder people from exploring and meeting new people once they’ve gotten established in one place. Besides isn’t the point to kill titans and gain tiers to get to the next worlds? Not having to establish yourself on one world by traveling before you can go to the next.
Also griefers travel a lot. I have seen griefs that cover huge areas and I assume that these people probably wander a bit to be sure they are alone before they build.

Not being able to build outside of beacons is an interesting idea, but that means you will have to play to get a sizable beacon first. Some people just want to build. This also gives partial treatment to supporters who have “mega beacons” from those who have nothing starting out.

Not allowing beacons to be placed too close to another hinders people from coming together. My area alone has four people in back-to-back beacons.

The problem with the “flagging” system is that no one has caught one of these guys yet, so who are we flagging? If we actually catch them just by seeing them, then a punishment system could be implemented, such as a temporary ban. And Yes as Ardos pointed out, griefers could just flag you, but then there could be a punishment for false flagging or those who frequently flag.

I do agree with you Dark. I am surprised the Devs don’t have a system to see who was on the servers at a given time, but I realize that would require a great deal of computer memory to “record” each player or each world. So that’s why this may be an unreal solution.

I also agree that an “undo system” would probably also undo real player building and progression rather than just the griefers.

Right now, Beacons are the best anti-griefing system because they give you a place that can not be destroyed. And as stated by the Devs on the website, more people can create larger beacons by coming together.
So the best anti-griefing solution is just to come together, place beacons together, and guard your world together. With more people playing together, more land will be protected not only by beacons, but also by those looking out for griefers. Also once griefed, a large group can undo it pretty quickly.

37

I may be wrong, but I don’t think anyone starts out with any beacon no matter the supporter level.

38

Then what is a mega beacon and how does one come by it?

39

Good question, but I just assumed it means that the beacons you create have a slightly larger range than the default.

40

The what happens if multiple “maga-beacon” people come together? Does it multiply even further?

41

Another good question. I was not under the impression that people coming together make a beacon bigger. I was under the impression that people put their beacons side-by-side to increase the range since every player is limited. I may be misunderstanding it.