No more jail: Graal's Reform
 

Today I witnessed first hand an extremely foul player on Graal. This player was reported to staff and was put in jail. The player then proceeded to mass message his profanity, arguing with staff's judgement.

I sat there contemplating why this didn't seem to happen on other online games, be they MMORPG, FPS, or even Poker. Then it hit me: These games don't jail you. They ban you right away if you act up.

Take for example a common FPS game "Counterstrike: Source". In this game a server admin can ban your "account" for a given ammount of time or permanently.

So I propose we stop putting up with players who want to act up. Change the RC to include timed bans that automatically run out and use these in place of jails on servers. This will eliminate the age old contest of trying to devise "unhackable jails" and disallowing PMs from certain levels.

If a player can't connect to the server, they can't cause trouble. I would propose if a player is swearing excessively and won't stop when asked, simply ban them from the server for a couple hours. It becomes necessary to have timed bans because naturally people will lose track of release times or may be offline. Also, it should be displayed to the client in the ban information the time remaining until they are unbanned, or if the ban is permanent.

I think this would steeply reverse Graal's downhill slide into profanity and unrestrained insults. You get banned you're going to think twice the next time.

"Jails" are for RPing. Ban is for punishment.
I for one think it's time to stop putting up with it.

Normally I will ban someone for their jail time if they begin to act up there.

I agree with everything you are saying...REFORM!!!

I was thinking of this a while back too. I was thinking that there should be a ban time that can be set for disruptive players, but not something any staff member can set on their own. I figure there should be a list of options such as 3 days, 7 days, 1 month. Remove server managers abilities to permanent ban or ip ban. And have this data forwarded somewhere so globals can review bans for accounts that are continuously being in trouble on a server.
I thought about this idea not because of bad players, but because of abusive staff.
This is something that should be developed a little better and be more organized though. I'm all in favor of getting rid of the current system too.

I disagree with the set options. I think people should be able to choose an appropriate time frame for the offense, even permanent if required.

However, it would be good for all ban information to be accessible by the globals, and also from the accounts list. I think managers should be able to run "background checks" of some sort on potential staff. That way we don't get a bunch of people hiring a content theif, or a trouble maker banned on most of the classic servers.

But that topic is for another thread another time.

Yeah, ok Hitler.
What do you want to do next? Make them wear uniforms and stomp around?
See, the thing with games like Counter-Strike is that there are more than 1 server you can play the same game on, and it's not like each server has tons of people on them.
And with other MMOs, you rarely get reported in the first place. And if you do, you get a warning. It's rare that you can do something so serious on an MMO (other than botting) that will get you banned.
If making a simple jail system is too difficult for the server owner or administrators, then maybe they shouldn't be in power?
If you need to resort to time-banning every offense in order to keep "power" and "order" on your server, you're just going to create MORE problems, considering most Graal staff are immature children who don't know the difference between 3 days and 3 weeks.

I agree. Also, check out my old thread about the timed banning feature I posted a few years back...
http://forums.graalonline.com/forums...ad.php?t=26745

Tried that, got fired; "too strict".
That would be nice. :)

Yeap, then the admin wouldn't mind banning as much since (s)he wouldn't have to worry about remembering to unban said person.

Doesn't seem to work like that, though. You get banned and you complain "Oh )': I was being a racist bigot and sexually harrassing another player, and Zero Hour banned me )':" So, when they get enough of these complaints the person being complained to will go "OH GOD MAKE IT STOP. *fire Zero Hour*"

Yeap, pretty much. Although I find the pillory on GK works quite well since it's a timed punishment (which one must server out online-time) and while they're in it they can't move or talk.

How can they mass from jail? I thought massing from jail is disabled.

it is a script if the server dosent have it then they can mass from jail

I would be all for a timed ban instead of jails
alot of the players just think it's cool to go to the jail level, it is nothing but a big joke...

Yea, it's not a punishment really, considering they can still log on, gain hours and beg staff to get out.

Weel I know many players take pride in there number of visits to UNs jail, so in return we counter those long jail record holders with temp bans and sometimes if there record is to extreme we warn them that there next offense will result in there permenant ban, also if the record is to long it hurts there chances from becoming a staff member when the opportunity presents itself.

It only hurts their chances?

Depending on the offense... There has been a thing going around, Kaimetsu, called Second Chances. It's when you figure that the person learnt their 'lesson' and redeem from their past actions.

I could easily make an autodisconnect on login using /reset #a. But the only problem is that it resets them without a reason.

Something to add on to this: Having it so you have something like a global playerlist for bans. Basically, you can check the ban messages on other server (but not edit them) on files they did on a particular person. This would give more credibility to other servers who suspect a person from hacking, persay. Perhaps even merging IP Bans in the Ban list.

Something that would be useful would be searching the accounts list for banned account, and depending on the playerworlds, (such as: era), you can know who's banned on any server. It would archive all bans so that everyone with ban rights could work around hackings a lot easier.

How very naïve.

Server Options -> jaillevel= levelname.nw/.graal

Actually, an MMORPG I currently play (won't mention name) has a jail, but very few people are aware of it and people are rarely sent to it, because most of the time they are banned. Usually for people who break the rules slightly and need to be punished for whatever reason, most slip ups usualy result in warnings and bans but in some cases they are sent there, but I will mention a few other graalians do play this MMORPG.

I never said it wasn't.

He was right though, plus..some people grow up, or out of doing certain things

Some people, yes. But does it happen often enough to justify assuming that people have changed?

I know that 4 years ago when I was 14 I wasn't as mature as I am now and because of my immaturity I did things that would warrant a visit to UNs jail atleast once every two weeks.

After a little growth and maturity I was given a chance for my jail record to be overlooked because of the way I presented myself during the application time to become a staff member.

So yes it would hurt your chances if we can see you have not changed and we believe you still show the same immaturity that landed you in jail all those times on you record.

So, what, you support this policy because it once benefitted you?

Anecdotal evidence is practically worthless. I acknowledge that some people change, but that doesn't justify assuming that everybody can. And it's pretty easy to fool somebody on an application form or in an interview - hell, I know lots of people that can appear mature most of the time but rapidly descend into petulant stupidity if pushed the wrong way.

Bad idea this will impact communities because of reasons i cannot explain since im eating and am not thinking straight, and its just stupid to be like other games. Graal has SOME (wow believe it or not) originality. Why the hell should it change because of some retard who makes noise in jail? Oh and by the way, players aren't supposed to be able to mass in jail.

I didn't say I supported the policy I was only explaining why it only hurt a players chances to becoming staff.

There's nothing to explain. The policy has already been described in sufficient detail - all that is left is to justify it.

Kind of hard to do that when certain global staff reverse your decisions without properly investigating first. :p

If you have an issue my inbox has space.

Kai and Neo stop hijacking my thread x_x

Given the breadth of your topic, I think you'd have difficulty arguing that we're straying from it.

We have no jail on Zone. When players hack or start using profanity towards players directly in a disrespectful manner, then I proceed in banning them. I see no point in jails anyways. As moonie stated, players intentionally act up to be sent to jail.

Suggestion:

If these timed bans are implemented to the RC program, then I think that it should ban the users IP, rather then only account. (I'll use Zone as an example)...I'm sick and tired of me banning trial members on Zone, and then they just get on another trial and act disrespectful again, and I dont always catch them the second time, since I have no clue what account to look out for. This doesn't only apply to the trial members, but some gold members also. It's ridiculous. If you're banned on a server, you shouldn't be able to access it until you are unbanned (if you are unbanned).

This would be easier to catch if scripts had access to a users IP. I never really understood why a players IP isn't exposed to script to begin with.

I say we IP ban you... :p

But eh, most of the people have AOL or something with a dynamic IP anyway, so its hard to really just ban someones IP unless they have Cable or something.

Could always ban AOL again like in the old Graal days. :cool:

I'm not sure but I thought you could check it using RC.

Maybe some sort of system could be made where banned users IP's are updated every X amount of hours or something to make sure that the user isn't using any sort of way to change their IP to avoid the ban.

Rephrase of what I just said:

Maybe every X amount of hours or so, the system could update and check all of the IP's of the users that are banned, and if the IP's match the last known IP, then the ban stays and everything is fine, but if the IP is different then the one banned previously, then the system adds that IP to the ban list along with the old one or something.

Could be as simple as last IP of a banned account. You can easily query the IP field of the Database, and if the accounts that match that one is banned, then they're banned.

Then you'd never see my pretty face on Era. :frown:

I was joking. :eek:

I agree with Houdini, I like this idea.

UN jail is a very nice jail :)