On ethics and fair play in a sandbox game

[exekewtable]

I disagree with the thrust of Splat's argument. My preference for an ethos would be "we are all in this together". Therefore, how does any particular aspect effect (or affect!) us as collective.
Perhaps I am more left wing that most, and perhaps I am more utopian, but framing the argument around "how does a particular aspect apply to me" is the wrong approach I feel.
With that in mind, I would love to be able to challenge the notion of property - its not 'your resources', its 'our resources' but still maintain a sense of individual accomplishment. It sounds more difficult, but thats how I feel about it. I don't have any concrete specific suggestions as to rules, but we all gotta agree on a principle first.

[Sp!at]

Originally Posted by exekewtable

I disagree with the thrust of Splat's argument. My preference for an ethos would be "we are all in this together". Therefore, how does any particular aspect effect (or affect!) us as collective.
Perhaps I am more left wing that most, and perhaps I am more utopian, but framing the argument around "how does a particular aspect apply to me" is the wrong approach I feel.
With that in mind, I would love to be able to challenge the notion of property - its not 'your resources', its 'our resources' but still maintain a sense of individual accomplishment. It sounds more difficult, but thats how I feel about it. I don't have any concrete specific suggestions as to rules, but we all gotta agree on a principle first.

I actually agree with what you are saying so perhaps I didn't articulate what I meant very well.

Presently it seems that the filter used when evaluating mods is "What can go wrong?" and that any reason, no matter how small or obscure, is enough to veto a particular mod. I'm not suggesting we stop using this filter. What I'm suggesting is that we change the thinking a little to ask "What is negative AND what is positive?" and then arrive at a balanced decision rather than a veto decision. At the moment it feels like a mod has to get 100% past the veto stage before being considered and I feel we are making imbalanced decisions as a result. The point being that as a cooperative sandbox game our adherence to the TOG guidelines should be more about the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law. I realise this makes decisions grey but at the end of the day it is all about everyone playing the game collectively and having fun.

[Sorontar]

Thank you for all continuing to be cordial in this discussion.

Originally Posted by Sp!at

What I'm suggesting is that we change the thinking a little to ask "What is negative AND what is positive?" and then arrive at a balanced decision rather than a veto decision.

That is what I hope I can arrive at based on the information and feedback provided by the Division. I always want mods to be presented as having Pros and Cons. Anyone who wants a mod to be considered, will easily provide the Pros. Sometimes it will be up to people like me to provide the Cons. But the key thing is that the Division can consider both and indicate how important they feel they are to their interpretation of fairplay.

I believe that client mods have always been restricted in this Division since Thermal wrote up the first stickies. There are a lot of them, and as you have all said, some are not fairplay. Therefore, we cannot just let any be used. However, we can let some be used. That is why we are having these discussions.

As to what is the spirit of fairplay, the vanilla Sanctuary experiment showed that the division has a vastly different interpretation of that. Things were done that were against the spirit of fairplay that hurt the play of individuals and the concept of community. Therefore we have had to solidify and give structure to this spirit of fairplay. This is unfortunate, but as I have previously said, each division is actually expected to have its own code of conduct (http://www.theoldergamers.com/forum/...rocedures.html). In this document, it is a little vague but it says

Cheating means to violate game rules deliberately.

The rules relevant to each Division will contain specific details relating to what constitutes cheating in that particular game.

It is that definition we are all helping to define, especially where there are grey areas.

Sorontar

[Coralon]

Yeah I think we are pretty evenly weighing the pros and cons of each mod being put forward which by definition is the essence of fairplay. The issue that is really at hand is each persons individual ethics and how they change what that person calls fairplay.

When taken in an absolute and linier context fairplay would mean out of the box with no additions or improvments. Lets step away from MC for a second and look at a game like Battlefield 3, this title out of the box is buggy but good, advanced for its time and feature rich but... there is no built in VOIP, there is no ingame video capture. If the BF3 division said that you were not allowed to use any third party applications (mods for the point of this discussion) the game would be a huge failure as without real time communication or the ability to review historical data in the form of captured footage it would be almost impossible to compete at the higher levels. Now not all people who play the game will have or use these tools but the division as a whole accepts that these are within the realm of fairplay and do not tread on the ethics of others. Thus third party applications are allowed within these ideals and as they are widely available everyone agrees that the playing field is even and fair.

Back into the MC realm and the third party applications that have already been approved:

* Water shaders- a big improvement in the way the game looks with little or any affect on actual gameplay so easily put into the fairplay basket with little to no offence to the ethics of all but the most devout of cannon followers. Downside is you need a nuclear reactor to actually play the game with this installed.

* Improved chat- I thought this was simply an 'improved chat' but after reading that it can basically macro commands I can see it could have a larger possible benefit to a player BUT... being able to macro a command on frontier would not give you a great deal of advantage beyond not having to type it and teleporting has a warm up timer so you will not be saved by the macro. Easily in the fairplay basket with little to no ethical impact.

* Minimap- this is a tricky one, it doesnt change any core game mechanics and really due to the way in which most of the features are controlable on a server level vs the client level it gives you a pretty picture in the corner, the ability to add waypoints and tells you your location coordinates. I am yet to find a use for the first or third benefits and as for waypoints, its all well and good to have them but finding your way back through an abandoned mine to that exact position is much easier said than done. Hard to say if this type of mod is really fair play, it is in the grey area but there was enough support to allow it. Does it tread on ethical feet, probably but for the greater majority of the community it was deemed acceptable. Given my personal ethics in gameplay I believe that the minmap offers no real benefit other than displaying your height in a much less invasive manner than bringing up the debug screen so its ok IMO.

In closing personal ethics will always be personal and what one deems fairplay may tread on the ethical views of another but generally as a collective an agreement can be reached.

[Obsi]

Improved chat- I thought this was simply an 'improved chat' but after reading that it can basically macro commands I can see it could have a larger possible benefit to a player BUT... being able to macro a command on frontier would not give you a great deal of advantage beyond not having to type it and teleporting has a warm up timer so you will not be saved by the macro. Easily in the fairplay basket with little to no ethical impact.

Actually, improved chat will have to be re-discussed I think, as when it first came out (I believe) it only gave the ability to cut and paste and for the text to wrap onto a different line if it was too long for the default space. Now it allows the binding of keys so that a player can press one key to teleport home or to another player, and a screen that allows a player to click on another player to teleport to them - and that is different to what was originally approved.

I find it funny how when people were arguing about whether or not we should allow teleporting or warps on Frontier/Survival, a lot of people said nobody should be allowed to use them, even if someone else teleporting or warping wasn't actually going to make a difference in another player's gameplay. So ultimately it was decided that what other people do in game does affect other players, by the fact that we are all playing the same game (albeit in different ways).

[Sp!at]

Originally Posted by Obsi

I find it funny how when people were arguing about whether or not we should allow teleporting or warps on Frontier/Survival, a lot of people said nobody should be allowed to use them, even if someone else teleporting or warping wasn't actually going to make a difference in another player's gameplay. So ultimately it was decided that what other people do in game does affect other players, by the fact that we are all playing the same game (albeit in different ways).

I agree that people deciding to play a 'Quaker' style game where they abstain from doing things that are available for others would be both difficult and depressing. I mean who doesn't switch to creative mode in the Creative server if you want to build anything? My bet is no-one.

I think that this issue regarding teleporting is not a black and white one. I believe I voted against teleporting because I wanted the community to make use of the Nether and to encourage transport systems. When we didn't have teleporting there was a very different spirit about the game and suddenly your neighbours were very important because you didn't want to be caught out at night. While I was against having it for those reasons it doesn't mean that I won't use it if it is available and the decision to have it certainly wasn't a game-breaker for me. In fact when I'm online I tend to TP everywhere to see what peeps are working on. I certainly have the choice of using it or not and if it's available then I'll use it.