30 Day Timer Request

[HEEGZ]

Cool. Thanks for the discussion. Hopefully the admin are already discussing how to vote on this in their hidden admin forums. Not that I mind waiting another 29 days...

[Swift]

And yet we are still paranoid about letting people play where you DM

[johnlewismcleod]

I thought that was where I DM

[Zelknolf]

And yet we are still paranoid about letting people play where you DM

DMs find ways to twink themselves without playing where they DM, and then we make those people DMA, because no amount of DM misconduct actually makes you cease to be a "member in good standing." To make that worse, DMAs have consistently regarded the details of such misconduct "private," so folk who are expected to vote on who a new DMA will be regard actual tangible easily-proven misconduct as "just rumors" if they've heard about it at all.

I'm sure we could fix this with meaningful discipline-- but I'd be much more likely to believe that'll happen if we actually did it.



So I think the idea here is to try to shove off the restrictions that don't meaningfully protect us from such nonsense, so that we can be spared some of the inconvenience generated by trying to stop the sort.

[gonz.0]

I would request a consistent rule be set for a time frame between when a player can have an alt character on the same server, and when a DM can then play on the server they DM on. DMs need a break, they can't be forced to always be a DM or they burn out. I support that, but I also think that consistency between the two is appropriate.

If the time frame is dependant upon the a reset, I would have to ask. Is there an IRC tool to request #uptime from a server? I would hate to see someone getting dinged for logging in a day too soon because they 'thought' the server had been reset but that reset was delayed. If there is not that tool, or some other method to report that publicly, can such a thing be managed by Tech? I don't know details of how much it would take, but I have confidence in the tech teams ability.

(Disclaimer: By alt I of course mean 2nd PC, not replacing of one that was retired or replaced. We all want players to get right back in if they have lost a character.)

[Zelknolf]

I of course defer to the PA on this matter-- but, in all prior instances of "Player is on a server they're not supposed to be," there is no punishment if you leave without interacting with the server more than the bare minimum to resolve the reason that you're there.

For instance, if you're a BG DM and have a character on MS who must reach TSM, your PC may be on BG, but only to reach the portal, and may not shop/ do quests/ get DMed/ stop to talk to people. If someone catches you IC, you answer "(( Disregard me. I have to go straight to the portal. ))" and all is well.

Presumably, the same would apply for a restart-based DM-to-player transition. Logging in, checking #uptime, seeing the number being too high, and then grumbling quietly and logging out (potentially asking if a reset is in the cards on IRC or such) seems pretty unlikely to prompt punishment.

[Heero]

The PAs stance on this matter is as follows:

Go on and take your 2nd PC wherever so long as a reset has occurred since your last, other PC's login, self-policed using the #uptime command with immediate logging off or leaving the server* for another.

Metagaming shall be punished harshly with an iron fist of justice.

So it is written.

*This may not be possible as AT travel timers are not PA purview. Should you be forced to log back out, unable to travel, complaints in regard to your poor decision to travel are officially unwanted by the PA and will be neither fielded nor addressed.

[Zelknolf]

This sounds a lot like a ruling. If admin policy is actually changing, can we post this to the appropriate threads, and also make sure that the HDMs are at least not enraged enough by any change to brandish their server bans?

Also can we for-realsies-this-time add this rule, in whatever state it arrives in, to the Rulebook? I know that dusty old forum posts satisfy the charter's requirement to inform the community about our rules, but it's nice if people can just reference a central document for what they're (not) allowed to do here, instead of having to go spelunking through eighty year old threads.

It also might be worth putting on more than the hacked-up blurb about Multiple PCs, which currently leaves out a lot of important details. It sounds like both of those were getting the eye in this discussion, and that's a fine time to tidy up the sloppy work of people past.

[Heero]

Addendum:

The PA, meaning me, supports HDM-purview of addition stipulations on wait time(s), for either case of 'play where you just quit DMing' or 'bring 2nd character to server first character just left', with these additional stipulations not to be more lenient than ALFA-policy.

[Brokenbone]

It sounds like the baseline PA rule in so far as "play" goes... is that wait time is as little as zero minutes/hours/days, so long as at least a reset has intervened. This is whether we're talking 2nd PC or ex-DM. The "don't metagame" rule has always been around, whether for things you remember about statics, dungeons, or crap you read in someone's library entry which might lend some advantage in play.

HDMs can at their discretion though, as they've always had anyhow, add their own conditions. If someone wants to keep +30 days wait, fine. If someone wants to go to +7 days wait, fine. If someone wants to go 100% with that base rule above, but to remind "do not bug me for a reset, our DMs might decorate stuff that we don't want to mess up until people have had a crack at it", fine too. Or if someone wants to say "always ask me personally for a waiver, whether it's 1 day, 30 days or 500 days", that is HDM prerogative too.

EDIT: I know it was mentioned above, but for those who've never used it... you can type #uptime into the chat bar anytime, it will tell you the amount of time a server has been up. If you see it's only been up a couple hours or something and your last PC / DM avatar "left" that turf before then, it sounds like you're good. Our servers are sometimes up an awful long time though, you can easily see stuff like 8 days or longer as the figure. I think the longer a server is up, the more diverse the shops get which have any "random" loot kind of system involved, i.e., weird things start accumulating for potential sale, which is I guess you could call a benefit of long uptime?

[Zelknolf]

or 500 days

This would require a separate rule change. The HDM power to kick players off of their servers is delegated from the PA, which is currently limited to 30 days. An HDM who wants longer, under the current rules, needs to get a PA ruling against the specific player.

The PA has the power to extend that, insofar as I wouldn't expect our LA-who-is-also-an-HDM to veto. Though I might argue that we're already in bad territory with that rule-- the power's primary use is censuring players. Trouble is that we pretend it's not censure so they don't have the right to an appeal or counseling, don't have to violate any rules, and don't have to have the reason for the censure explained to them. It's not really worth fighting over when a censure expires before an investigation could be completed, but we're already in longer time spans than that.

[HEEGZ]

Thanks for the change to all involved! TSM has been reset so... cya in game sooner than later.

[SwordSaintMusashi]

For what its worth, the DMA completely supports the PA's decision to allow DMs to play on the same server after a server reset, and has updated the DMA rulings as well to reflect the PA's decision.

[Brokenbone]

Good deal! This means if anyone even just had one little pet idea they wanted to DM and wanted to give it a spin, it's low risk to future play. Hop on for a long weekend, do your thing, move on! Unless the bug bites you which everyone hopes.

[Swift]

And yet we are still paranoid about letting people play where you DM

DMs find ways to twink themselves without playing where they DM, and then we make those people DMA, because no amount of DM misconduct actually makes you cease to be a "member in good standing." To make that worse, DMAs have consistently regarded the details of such misconduct "private," so folk who are expected to vote on who a new DMA will be regard actual tangible easily-proven misconduct as "just rumors" if they've heard about it at all.

I'm sure we could fix this with meaningful discipline-- but I'd be much more likely to believe that'll happen if we actually did it.

This is the bed we have made for ourselves. I have long called for us to loosen up our restrictions and just punish the people who take advantage and exploit the rules, but ALFA as a community has always tended to lean the other way and just have more and more rules in an effort to not have loopholes. It continues to boggle my mind that we seem happy to loosen up rules on playing further and further, but DMs (which we have always been in short supply of and are the ones we trust with creating magic for the players) continue to have baffling restrictions.

Good deal! This means if anyone even just had one little pet idea they wanted to DM and wanted to give it a spin, it's low risk to future play. Hop on for a long weekend, do your thing, move on! Unless the bug bites you which everyone hopes.

Why would you though? At this point, asking to step up to DM a one off event once a week is a far better idea than asking to become a full DM because the moment you become a full DM, you are cutting off that server from the locations you can play. It is now a far better idea to just DM something once every couple weeks so that you have that experience while still retaining your ability to play on all servers in a timely fashion.