Henry d'Esterre Darby

In nearly two years of moderating this forum, I can count on one hand the number of threads that have been flat out removed for discussing moderation. It's less than 10. Maybe 15 if you count locked threads. 15....in two years. I'll also note that I personally reached out to you, Caesar, two days ago asking why you were so angry and asking you to discuss your specific complaints with me so that I could better understand your point of view. Your response was an insult to my "moderation abilities", and a flat refusal to discuss your grievances with me. Now you're here, trying to have that discussion. That's fine with me, we can have it here. So let's open up the curtains and reveal a little of what goes on behind the scenes. I'll agree, posts are more often hidden than edited (when they are completely bereft of content that furthers the purposes of the forum) on these forums. To be honest, it takes a lot more effort (and therefore time) to edit the post than to just remove it. But why edit/remove it in the first place? Most often we remove content because it will (and does) lead to post after post after post that has nothing to do with that thread, or that contains insults or other violations that are not constructive and that do not help the developers to make the game. Perhaps we should more often edit the post, removing all of its content, and leave a message as to why it was moderated. This means that users will have visible "hand slaps" that are visible to all. Or maybe, it's better that the content just disappears and the forum at large isn't any the wiser. Would you, as a community, like to see less hiding and more edits with reasons as to why the post was edited, or should we continue to hide? Bear in mind if we decide to do more editing, and less hiding, if someone posts outside the rules, and then 20 people respond and start flaming, that's 21 posts of moderated content that you now have to wade through while trying to get to a point where you can respond (on topic) to the thread itself. Hidden posts don't take up any room on your threads. We also moderate different boards differently. Developer News and Patch Notes is more closely moderated than Open World and Combat Mechanics Discussions, which are more closely moderated than the rest of the boards (except for National News), and then you have National News where we rarely step in - because the forums at large requested a "free for all" space where they could be disrespectful to each other (within reason). Finally there is the language based forums. Users in some of these forums are far more likely to take an anything goes approach to posting I've noticed. We have national news content in these areas - some users think that's ok, others send reports in pointing out that we're not following the rules by leaving those posts in there. Would you, as a non-English speaking community, like for us to allow National News style posts in the foreign language forums (maybe with a suitable tag in the subject line so people who don't want to be insulted can avoid them), or moderate those forums as we would the rest of the forums? Finally, to avoid a lot more typing, I'll repost some prior thoughts I have shared regarding moderation. In addition to the two, underlined, questions I've posted above, I'd like to hear from the community at large with their thoughts on moderation style and approach based on my thoughts below. The quote ends with a question - please take a moment to answer that question in this thread. Edit - This is your opportunity to ask us why? To discuss what you don't like about moderation - specifically. As long as you're respectful, no warnings, no sanctions, we'll answer your questions. The current assertion is that there are hundreds of you out there upset with our moderation. Let's hear it! Tell us why! I'm dead serious about this.

So, since we're actually leaving this open and discussing it, perhaps you can link specifics for us? Have you requested that the thread be hidden? Have you PM'd the moderator that locked it and requested changes or discussed your issue?

My assumption, and it's only a guess, is that there will be a certain time period during which you can vote. You don't have to vote, and if you don't log in and vote during that time period, your vote will simply not count. So it will be optional, it will be timely (e.g. the vote won't just sit out there open forever waiting for something), and it will be something you can do/not do as you desire.

Let's get back on the topic of feedback on the crew management update. Thanks.

As mentioned, you can't host your own server. Moving to General Discussion.

This is under review by the Admiralty. If any of the accused parties have anything to add, they may PM me. Thank you.

Correct. I'd get a screenshot of the person agreeing to it in chat to be safe. This will not let you escape from negative XP rewards for doing damage to a friendly though.

That means that for a period of time, the conquering (and conquered) nation's ships wouldn't be able to attack each other. So effectively, an Alliance (see the Alliances system thread) would be auto-declared, making the ships of those two countries unable to attack each other without turning pirate.

Please continue the discussion at the topic Skully linked. Thanks!

Bear in mind - you can still attack any other nation that is not your ally. You can still harass their shipping, you can even have clans that are continuing to make deals with other clans (e.g. Britain is allied with Denmark, but most of her clans agree not to attack the United States). From the sounds of it, you get EXTRA rewards from attacking a declared enemy, but this idea that you can't continue to do the same thing you're doing now - where agreements are signed between clans, will not change unless that agreement is between two enemy nations - in which case, as a clan, you can still not attack the declared enemy if it disagrees with your politics.

No thank you. Having been a part of testing the various travel speeds, etc, the travel speed and world map are fine as they are right now.

I've removed a TON of off topic posts from this thread. The topic is - direct feedback on the patch. Not some feature you'd like to promote, not "OMG the game is dying!!!1111!!!11", not "I tried to help new players and they left." Give feedback on the patch features themselves only please. Further off topic discussions will result in warnings. ------------- A reminder for folks just joining this thread - the Santa Cecilia BP was mistakenly added this patch cycle - it has since been removed. Patience please while the ship continues through the balancing and testing cycle. Those who were able to build/capture the ship prior to its removal are encouraged to sail it and provide feedback on its performance, strengths, and weaknesses.

Please follow the steps in this thread: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/2892-technical-problems-reporting-guide-known-issues-and-their-solutions/ Post back here with any further information you receive while following those steps.

No, not good. Please relax.

Let's get back on topic please.

Please submit an F11 in the game. Thanks!

This sounds to me to be a ridiculously complicated and unnecessary "solution" to a mechanic that is not a problem right now. If XP/Gold were granted to the victor when a ship surrendered based on the total amount of damage done to that ship, we'd be good to go without all of this complexity.

We generally warn players for doing the same here. It's generally frowned upon.

Parley? The victorious Captain didn't send over an officer to say "hmm....we'll stop fighting if you pay us X or do Y", the officer came over and either the ship had struck and submitted to him, or the officer was mistaken and rowed back, at which point the ships would continue to pound each other. Taking a prize crew over meant the battle was flat out over, period. No terms, no negotiation, you struck because if you didn't, you were likely going to sink and/or kill the rest of your crew in a pointless battle against a ship that had won. The prize courts didn't return merchant ships to the enemy. That defeats the ENTIRE purpose of resource denial. Those ships would likely be sold off to companies in the capturing nation to use, or bought into the service if the Navy needed such a ship for supply or other logistical purposes. Returning a captured merchant ship to its original owner would have been asinine in a time of war. In fact, quite often, if the ship was operating far away from friendly bases, the captured ship would be burned after the remaining crew was taken off so as not to further weaken the victorious ship's crew further by sending people off in the prize. A total anathema to the idea that after capture a ship was simply returned to its owners. Parley might be a viable gameplay mechanic for pirates, but I think your ideas are entirely unhistorical and make very little sense with regards to nation v nation battles.

I still maintain that there is a bug with location generation on wrecks - there just needs to be more data to replicate the problem. Please F11 every time this happens with a shot of the map (hit M, F11, M again, then fill out the form).

Please report this problem via F11.

I think I see your proposal more clearly. My concern still rests with making fleet ships too "must have" though.

And not likely to come any time soon. The feature is very near impossible to implement correctly.

No thanks. This just leads to people tooling around in Privateers and letting the AI do the dirty work. I'd personally rather the player be personally involved in boarding and other fighting as much as possible.

Maybe not to the degree that we use it in game, but yes, an unbalanced rig setting in real life will assist/hinder a ship attempting to turn. These ships can, in fact, be steered fairly well without a rudder at all (on most points of sail).