Common courtesy rules for public servers

[Leaf]

A question was sent my way about the courtesy rules for a public server - the person wanted to know if there were any.

So, what are some of the rules that should be recommended? What rules should be enforced (as in jail time or IP banning)?

Please include anything you can think of so that any server admin could copy & paste the content.

[hoxu]

This is just a draft.. I'll modify it a bit later. Try google and you probably find out where I pretty much took it

When you are logged to a crossfire server you must abide by the following rules. Violation of any of the rules may immidiately get your account terminated, and/or your ip banned.

- Profanity. You may not use any offensive or sexually explicit language.
- Player killing. Many servers prohibit player killing. Be careful to read the motd, and/or visit the server's homepage to find out what the situation is in the server being in question.
- Impersonating. You may not impersonate anyone (eg. claim that you are the server admin). Such actions will most likely get you banned and your character tortured to a horrible death.
- Advertising. You may not advertise or promote anything.
- Warez. You may not arrange the exchange or transfer of any pirated software or other contraband.
- Personal information. You may not post or spread out any player's real world personal information.
- Cheating. You may not modify any electronic information being exchanged between a server and your client. Also, if cheating is possible by using the normal facilities provided by the client, you should report that as a bug.

NOTE: In addition to these rules, you may not violate any national, local or international regulation or law.

[philc]

Sounds a bit harsh to me as we didn't have any of those rules so far... when I see rules like that, it usually reduces my opinion of it. I know, people are stupid and need rules but being a bit more polite might not be bad IMHO.

[hoxu]

Oh.. in that case, one could add "For windows and aol users".

[philc]

that's the same as 'stupid' isnt' it?

[Lauwenmark]

This is just a draft.. I'll modify it a bit later. Try google and you probably find out where I pretty much took it

When you are logged to a crossfire server you must abide by the following rules. Violation of any of the rules may immidiately get your account terminated, and/or your ip banned.

- Profanity. You may not use any offensive or sexually explicit language.

Sounds rather dangerous for me, even if I usually do not use such language in public. What is 'offensive' ? This may end up banning discussion on politics or religions (in a game-focused way of course, not the real ones), because some people may get offended by 'non-christian' suggestions for example (it happened already, I'm not inventing this). Offensiveness is a too vague definition to be acceptable IMO.

- Player killing. Many servers prohibit player killing. Be careful to read the motd, and/or visit the server's homepage to find out what the situation is in the server being in question.

Fair. Maybe just adding "voluntair PK" ?

- Impersonating. You may not impersonate anyone (eg. claim that you are the server admin). Such actions will most likely get you banned and your character tortured to a horrible death.

You may not impersonate real people. On the other hand, you should be allowed to impersonate game characters - an useful tactic for thieves (the current code doesn't allow you to change your name on the fly, but that's a possibility that has to be taken into account)

- Advertising. You may not advertise or promote anything.

... As long as it isn't in-game stuff

- Warez. You may not arrange the exchange or transfer of any pirated software or other contraband.

... Unless that contraband is in-game stuff

- Personal information. You may not post or spread out any player's real world personal information.

... without his/her explicit permission to do so.

- Cheating. You may not modify any electronic information being exchanged between a server and your client. Also, if cheating is possible by using the normal facilities provided by the client, you should report that as a bug.

I'm not sure I agree with the information exchanged between the server and the client. This may turn some experiments more complex without any good reason.
Agree with the cheating part, though.

NOTE: In addition to these rules, you may not violate any national, local or international regulation or law.

I agree with the idea, but not with the words. "Any" means "from every country in the world", which seems quite difficult. Besides that, legal issues may quickly arise, because the laws applying to the client-side may be incompatible with the server-side ones. I strongly suggest consulting other legal sources before posting something about laws.

[Ryo]

(this thread is a few months, but i have a few ideas i'd like to share)

What i'd think is nice behaviour would be: if you enter a map, and see someone started to clear it, check if that someone is still in the maps. If yes, ASK if you can join her/him in the maps.

I don't mean maps are 'reserved', or whatever. But it can be annoying when you are cleaning titan quest & suddenly someone comes unannonced & starts killing monsters without saying anything.

Yes everyone wants xp/items. But still, imo the basic politness requires to at least say you are coming and ask if it's ok.....

A few times i left a map because someone came unannounced... But i'd have been happy to party to share xp (and level in some hard to level skills)

[Avion]

I recently committed a toggle for shouting that among other things allows DMs to disable players from shouting if they are abusing it. I find it very abused but do realize part of playing is sharing the environment. I do have a few suggestions that maybe it would be nice to see implemented howeever.

1. channels. I realize that people in a party can use gsay (you hear this - use it you shouty party people - I hate hearing about your exploits and spoilers) but a party also entails sharing Xp however - what about if you want to tune into a chat without being in a party? Well if there were channels that you could create and listen to that would be nice. Say I am new - I can sign up for the newbie channel, or if I am am in a guiild I can sign up for the guild channel. This would be great IMHO. I saw this on a few muds and think it is good way to have community and not have to listen to everything. A command to view the current list and start up or sign up for channels would be great IMHO. I am not sure passwords are a good idea here - this is not a proivate conversation sort of thing and there is still gsay and good old fashioned say and tell for more private conversation.

2. Put in a shouting policy on your servers - it is important to have shout as a global message because it is a convention in the genre and it is useful for real important stuff (like 'server is going down' or 'I need help'). A little fun is nice too (like shouting 'hey Norm') but if shouting is common then it is bad and annoying. A policy stated on the server about shouting is necessary so that when it is abused the DM feels free to muzzle a player. If there is no policy then the DM may hesitate or not be consistant which are bad things and cause resentment.

[Leaf]

2. Put in a shouting policy on your servers - it is important to have shout as a global message because it is a convention in the genre and it is useful for real important stuff (like server is going down, I need help). A little fun is nice too (like shouting 'hey Norm') but if shouting is common then it is bad and annoying. A policy stated on the server about shouting is necessary so that when it is abused the DM feels free to muzzle a player. If there is no policy then the DM may hesitate or not be consistant which are bad things and cause resentment.

Can someone confirm that in the DirectX client, the "tell" command is not available?

[Avion]

Can someone confirm that in the DirectX client, the "tell" command is not available?

Things like who and tell and stuff may not be available using the DX client window shortcuts or buttons but they still work from the command line AFAIK.