Question to devs regarding Steam EA player behaviour

[Liam]

As is stands right now, this community has been fantastic. The vast majority of the people that have purchased this game, and are playing it currently visit the forums at least weekly. Everyone is understanding of the rules and agrees with them for the most part. The tribunal system has been working efficiently, and when accused, players are often quick to grab evidence to aid their case.

 

Now, that brings me to my question. Once Early Access comes out, are we prepared for the mass influx of new players, both casual and hardcore? How are rules going to be enforced, and how can we be sure players will even know that a rule book exists? What about friendly fire, pirate vs pirate team killing, or damage farming?

 

Sorry to spew a bunch of speculative questions at you.   These however are real concerns, especially once the in-game populations jumps from 50 to 500, or even 5000...is that too optimistic? Realistically I don't see this game gaining quite that much attention, but it is possible. Rust for example prior to coming on steam had a little over a 1000 backers. A mere week after being released they had 14,000. A month later they nearly hit 40,000. Source: http://www.facepunchstudios.com/sales-figures/   Now Rust is an entirely different game then NA, and the crowd it draws is much different too. but however, it may not be entirely out of the question. 

 

The way I see it, is that you, the developers, have to make the rule book a lot clearer. I understand that we have a page dedicated to the rules, as seen here: http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/2346-forum-and-sea-trials-rules/ But we can't guarantee all people that play the game are going to visit the forums in search of rules, or even have knowledge that a tribunal system exists. Of all the games I own on steam, several of which are online only, I only actively visit the forums of maybe 4 of 5 of them, so what's to say people will visit the NA forums?

 

Now a rather basic solution to this would to just have a pop up appear once the game is launched, that states the rules, and forces you to click accept, almost like the Terms and Conditions. But there is the chance people would simply skip through it without reading it. Or another example is to have a pop up stating "Welcome to Naval Action Early Access...here is the link to the forums...link to the rules....link to patch notes ect". Really these are basic solutions, with not a whole lot of thought put into them, but they help give you an understanding of what I'm proposing.

 

What are your thoughts on this?

Edited January 3, 2016 by Liam

[Sir Madoc]

*Post removed by moderation*

[Liam]

Long post about something that may not even happen... Not sure what rust has got to do with anything either...

 

/thread

Sorry for being too thorough I guess and perhaps overthinking the topic. Long story short, I feel like the rules need to be clearer, more concise, and easier for the average player to see once Early Access hits. The Rust player count figures were simply an example of how Early Access can drastically increase the popularity of a game in a very short amount of time.

[Scorpio Shirica]

I'm hoping that as this game is quite niche, that we will have a high caliber of player base and we can trust the devs to treat the subject as they see fit. 

[William the Drake]

*referenced poster edited previous post-quote and reply removed*

Will rules change? Probably. But that's not necessarily a bad thing

However, we will not know what will happen to the community until, well, it happens.

Remember, NA fills a niche genre in gaming, so I'm optimistic that we won't have too much in the way of toxic or poverty rowdy community.

Edited January 3, 2016 by William the Drake

[BungeeLemming]

At the current rate of development Star Citizen will most likely be released before Naval Action ever makes it to steam.

not sure why you write fals statements madoc.

Please inform yourself bevore writing untrue facts.

patchnotes

[Liam]

Basically my worst fear is that a person joins when EA hits, spends a ton of time in the game, and ends up breaking a couple rules. Being new to the game or just a casual player, he doesn't check the forums, and therefor has no knowledge that such a rule book exists. Chances are the person will be inevitably punished, and when he questions why, he will be linked to the rule book, where he broke ___ rules. As it stands at the moment, the community is fairly forgiving, however once EA hits, that may change. If people begin to get punished for breaking rules they did not know existed, that won't have a very positive affect on the overall outlook of the game, especially for new players or people considering purchasing it.

['Sharpe]

At the current rate of development Star Citizen will most likely be released before Naval Action ever makes it to steam.

 

You haven't followed the game in months, you come on the forums one Saturday night and make angry accusations in multiple threads about the development progress of the game that simply aren't based in reality...

 

-edited flame-

Bungee

['Sharpe]

There is no way to police player behaviour. If the game wants profitability, it's going to have to deal with the massive tide of players who have little to no respect for a code of conduct, and don't know the first thing about the age of sail.

 

It's already happening. To give you an idea of the calibre of player who has joined since purchases became public, I'll tell you a story.

 

Friday night (GMT -6) I was in a Trinc hunting Pirates. I came across a lubberly looking frigate, and gave chase within an instance. The Pirate ran and ran, not knowing that it was a hopeless endeavour. He wanted to smack talk the whole time, I ignored. When finally it became apparent that he could not get away, he cut all sail and sat there while I sank him, with no participation on his part.

 

There is a certain type of player who, when realizing that escape is impossible, will at least fight out the instance. In the case of Friday night we were both in Frigates; we're not talking about insurmountable odds here. Many of the longtime NA players would have used the opportunity to practice 1v1 manuevering and at least have a fun fight, maybe even defeat my brittle, weak fir Trinc. Instead, I witnessed the mindset of the type of 13 year old gamer who has been joining Pirate in droves since access was opened: "If it's a fair fight or slightly disadvantaged, yank the cable, there's no fun in the battle, only in the assured victory with fourteen other teenage sniveling Pyrates on my side."

 

It's sad. Yet this is where the money is. Braincage's stream is driving 12 year olds to this game in incredible numbers, each paying with their parents' credit card. I'm sure the devs do not care, nor should they. Gaming is built around this demographic; to ignore it would be financially perilous. I only hope that the developers of Naval Action can design faction mechanics that maintain balance. Currently the Pirate zerg are making a mockery of the historical and balanced aspirations this game once set out with.

[Benass]

So u upset some one left his ship in a battle?  U won the day. Be happy.  Maybe he had to run to a toilet, u don't know that, it is relevant. 

 

How is that a rule breaker. 

 

I do understand your concern about in-game rules, but  some one leaving battle with out fighting  is nothing wrong. 

[Liam]

There is no way to police player behaviour. If the game wants profitability, it's going to have to deal with the massive tide of players who have little to no respect for a code of conduct, and don't know the first thing about the age of sail.

 

Realistically, this is the way I figured the game would go. Over the past year that I've had the game, I've seen a fair bit of confusion about the rules, the majority of issues have been ironed out, but I had a hunch that when EA hit, the rules would be simply forgotten. That being said, when the influx of players do come, I hope that many have enough common knowledge to know right from wrong. The last thing I want to see is mass amounts of toxicity, teamkilling, and ramming introduced into the game.

[Urchin]

Subscription only would cull out a lot of the steam kiddies, griefers and hackers. Difficult to find the right balance though, cost needs to be high enough to keep out toxic elements from joining the community yet low enough so that enthusiasts can still afford the monthly sub.

 

iRacing for example is expensive to participate in but you generally get a high quality field of players which otherwise wouldn't work if it was too cheap. 

[Nash]

Realistically, this is the way I figured the game would go. Over the past year that I've had the game, I've seen a fair bit of confusion about the rules, the majority of issues have been ironed out, but I had a hunch that when EA hit, the rules would be simply forgotten. That being said, when the influx of players do come, I hope that many have enough common knowledge to know right from wrong. The last thing I want to see is mass amounts of toxicity, teamkilling, and ramming introduced into the game.

 

Team killing = you become pirate and you will get negative xp.

For ramming, i think the consequence will be the same.

Also, the toxic one will not play this game for long because this game require a lot of cooperate between player if you want to have some big battle going, I know it because I was a lone wolf most of the time in Open World until recently.

[Ratline]

Subscription only would cull out a lot of the steam kiddies, griefers and hackers. Difficult to find the right balance though, cost needs to be high enough to keep out toxic elements from joining the community yet low enough so that enthusiasts can still afford the monthly sub.

 

iRacing for example is expensive to participate in but you generally get a high quality field of players which otherwise wouldn't work if it was too cheap. 

 

On the other hand EVE is subscription based and now days notorious for it's griefing and toxic community.  A sub by no means guarantees a good community and often puts off the casual, chatty, co-op style players... exactly those you want to keep to build a good in game atmosphere. I think you might also be surprised to find that many of those who behave badly are not as young as you might think.

All that said, I think it will be harder to maintain the friendly, helpful atmosphere of the chat channels if the influx of new players is very large. Incidents like people cutting in on battles, sinking capture targets and so on will no doubt increase and the fallout will be played out in chat. So far I've only actually seen one example of somebody being abusive in the Brit chat, and it just produced a lot of raised virtual eyebrows, followed by ignore and report. HAving a 'code of conduct and rules' made very clear when people sign up would be no bad thing. At least then they won't be able to gripe if they act up and get in trouble for it.

[jodgi]

Keep this in mind when you read game balance and mechanics suggestions from the likes of Kaos, Laik and Schutzengel. A lot of the stuff they say do factor in the nature of players out there.

[Powderhorn]

With a large influx of players that are not active on the forums, the only realway to enforce behavior is to code bad behavior to be impossible and for the more organized community to shun those who behave poorly.

The nature of gaming being what it is, some people will bend/break every "rule" they can, and keeping moderators on top of it will always be an arms race. Some of it we'll just have to sigh and shrug our shoulders.

I didn't realize Braincage was bringing so many people to the pirates. I know over the weekend I was in a looooong stern chase with Tattered Flags and with him that ended in him and his ally (C A G) getting sunk (maybe captured? I don't recall).

Still, it was a shot every 15s or so for about half an hour. I would think that would actually push away some of the more hyperactive kids.

[Cmdr Thrudd]

I'm also interested to see how this is worked out. I've played a lot of open world PvP games and the lack of a well thought out justice system seems to be a common mistake devs make. Steps are taken later to fix things but often by that point its just a sticky plaster and the toxic elements have already done the damage to the community. It's very hard to fix things once that's happened. It really needs to be something designed in and tested early in the games development.

[Easyseal]

In my time in the military we used to call it the 10% rule; out of every group of folks you will have around 10% of them as malcontents, trouble makers, or just not that bright. Its everyone elses duty, who are generally well behaved and want to be there, to not let the behavior spread and become toxic. It helps to have an active ban hammer and public shame as well.

[GrapeShot]

From what I've seen of the overreactions in this place, I think the infux of the usual internet suspects is going to be vastly entertaining to watch.

[Mirones]

we could allways ask steam that NA doesnt show up on the Hot page that should control the flood a little

[DeRuyter]

Team killing = you become pirate and you will get negative xp.

For ramming, i think the consequence will be the same.

Also, the toxic one will not play this game for long because this game require a lot of cooperate between player if you want to have some big battle going, I know it because I was a lone wolf most of the time in Open World until recently.

 

Ramming brings back memories of Sea Trials! Now the ramming is done by wayward AI Snows... I think the consequences for the rammer are immediate - lots of red leaks!