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Note from a Moderator
frozenfirevr
Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,475 Community Moderator
I wanted to share my views on the Neverwinter community and moderation. I often times used to hear about how negative feedback or messages are not allowed on the forum. Having experienced it for over a month, that is absolutely not the case. There are some issues causing this perception though.
).
This will probably change nothing, but thanks for reading.
Mod edit: While your general comments on this are welcome (until the 28th), please keep in mind, all the rules still apply.
- People notice only when things are moderated, and those quite likely end up being negative. All unmoderated negative feedback is never paid attention to when arriving at such a point of view.
- The feedback, often times, is mixed with other emotions and this is where most issues arise. Instead of saying "This is very irritating and should be changed." people go "Which HAMSTER came up with this idea? This HAMSTER absolutely HAAAAAAAMSTER! H-A-M-S-T-E-R!!!" which obviously isn't very nice.
- Having seen things, there are three common causes for posts being moderated:-
- Flaming/Trolling/Bashing. All this does is aggravate others and is absolutely pointless. If you disagree with something, try to put forth a polite argument that cannot be disagreed with. If somebody is not being reasonable, just leave them be. They and the others know the facts.
- Discussing Moderation. This, again is not helpful. The post has been removed for a reason (likely one of these). If you disagree with the reason, talk to the community team. Other players cannot help with that. All you could possibly seek to achieve by doing this is the previous point.
- Discussing Exploits and Repercussions. This also isn't of any use. The dev/community teams have no influence on Customer Support (they don't even work for the same company). All this could do is pool together anger (ofcourse you won't be happy with what had happened). So, take up these issues with the Customer Support.
- Flaming/Trolling/Bashing. All this does is aggravate others and is absolutely pointless. If you disagree with something, try to put forth a polite argument that cannot be disagreed with. If somebody is not being reasonable, just leave them be. They and the others know the facts.
).This will probably change nothing, but thanks for reading.
Mod edit: While your general comments on this are welcome (until the 28th), please keep in mind, all the rules still apply.
Post edited by frozenfirevr on
7
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Something I always try to keep in mind is:
"Moderation is the price we pay for a civilized internet."
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
Here's the problem: the devs, studio, and community team set the volunteer mods up for a bad time. In essence, they don't invest in community relations very well, make ruthless / brutal customer service decisions, and use the goodwill of the mods to clean up the repeated blowback, asking you to filter through awful bile and vitriol in the process.
That's not fair to you. They are burning up your positive energy through lack of proper action and customer support mentality. And in part through insistence on a certain approach to moderation, they paint a target squarely on the volunteer mods to seem like shills when all you're trying to do is enforce a positive discourse.
I agree that in some optimistic utopia, the problem could be solved as you describe, through collective positivity on the side of the community... building understanding and ownership over the game.
The problem is that we can't get there from where we are today. And that's not your fault. And I doubt there's much you can do to even send that message up the chain.
You have my sincerest sympathies.
This game company made some promises they failed to keep for over the last 5 years. I was an alpha tester, I felt ignored and betrayed, I tried to help, and nothing I did seemed to matter. I returned to NW shortly after beta, I didn't care for how they made the game design an arcade style 3rd person shooter. They gave both Star Trek and Champions "options" to switch between the MMO and FPS modes but removed it from NW. Was I disappointed? Yes, I was very disappointed.
However I was here for the promised Foundry that was beta tested on ST. Today the Foundry is still in beta and full of bugs, many great Foundry authors left. The Foundry was suppose to offer the users new content between modules. They removed the 1 hour of double XP and removed the rewards (which made qualifying pointless) and the database is filled with the stale, broken, and unfinished works. The GUI has been just awful since the start. Worse yet they based the Auction House on AD and not Gold as both Champions and Star Trek has the Gold standard. This lead us to our economy collapsing. There is much more, as you can see, there is a lot of failure here already. Take note, I never resorted to cursing about it.
The chat, in game and on the forums, over the past 2 years have become more and more toxic. I also blame a few game changes made for this psychological factor. The game pushes the envelope on gambling. Before you tell me your definition of gambling, let me tell you, The Journal of Consumer Research noted a clear pattern from media outlets (newspapers, television, internet), that lotteries and casinos were associated as legitimate forms of entertainment and business labeled most often as "gaming", while online counterparts frequently are labeled as "gambling" and associated more with crime. A Cornell University study showed that people who suffer gambling addiction still get the winners rush even when money is not at risk. Thus all games are gambling to some degree. Winning at Monopoly gives you a winner's rush and losing makes you feel bad.
These online games rain free lottery tickets in the form of lock boxes. Keys then are purchased either using AD or cash to open the box. The toxic behavior results from a negative impact to generate AD or lose more frequent negates the "winner's rush". Making frequent changes to the rules of gambling are often seen as the house attempting to cheat the gambler/gamer. Cryptic could remove all the lock boxes and offer their contents for cash, but they know players addicted to this form, would seek out other sources, and fewer players would buy the items. They could never sell a legendary mount for 50000 zen in the store.
Another change made to the game was the overtly restricted chat. This poor decision makes new players suffer through leveling well beyond level 25 to get the rights to; chat in any form what-so-ever. They are restricted from trading, mail, and all social activities. Isolation of a player is detrimental to their social development. Social interaction provides critical information, which leads to the creation of short- and long-term relationships. Relationships early in the game are important because they reinforce behaviors or actions in social situations that arise later. Without experience, sharing, or other social development skills, it is difficult to understand how to interact with players once they have been forced into this "lone wolf" persona. It is highly unlikely they would desire to join a guild for any reason. Robert D. Putnam released the book "Bowling Alone," in which he surveyed the declining participation in organizational groups in the United States. Rather than joining bowling leagues, the title suggests that we have refuted John Donne (No man is an island) and become individual islands. I play social games to be social and recently in another thread users told me "Conversations are not meant to be fun.".
I don't blame Cryptic for creating these people or their mental state. They are certainly attracting them to this game. While not all players are abusive, the game company's decision process is also highly questionable at times.
because you are a respected player and moderator.
But let me tell you a coupla 3 things:
1) Flaming and Trolling:
This is a moot point. No one complains about troll posts being pulled except the troll who posted it. The average player expects moderators to do that and is happy when you do.
2) Discussing Moderation:
Disclaimer... You started a post about moderation so you cannot reasonably refuse to let us reply...
The problem is a lack of safe space to give constructive criticism on moderation.
Reddit is the ideal place for moderator discussion.
But the NW Reddit is moderated by Official Forum/Cryptic chosen moderators.
This is a disgrace, an insult to the players and a conflict of interest. It is widely seen by serious players as a sycophantic propaganda echochamber. This is actually bad for Cryptic as players feel silenced in a space they should own.
When respected, long-time players create their own forum for moderator feedback they are banned in retaliation.
These are some of the most passionate supporters of NW.
The very mention of their UNwelcome forum is a banning offense. Shameful.
@frozenfirevr, if you are a truly independent advocate for players interests>company interests, push The Company to change the Reddit Moderation and allow respectful constructive criticism of Official Forum moderation on Reddit.
3) Exploits:
Agreed, this is a company site. No reasonable person would expect the company to allow them... so this doesn't really support the argument of unfair treatment of moderators.
The only reason there is complaint has already been said: the company stifles discussion on sites it does not or should not own.
Seriously, thanks for allowing this catharsis and at least acknowledging the Brontosaurus in the room...
... the one that was stealth-banned since 2014.
*Checks watch... begins countdown until this comment is moderated.*
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
As for trolling...
This forum is no different than any other in this regard. Very often, the moderation that occurs is to the ‘victim’ of the trolls, not the trolls themselves. A troll posts replies that push other posters to get heated up, and eggs them on further, and further, and no steps are taken to deal with it. But, when someone bites back, usually in a very heated way... THEY get moderated, fussed at, and more. I’ve seen that happen here in the past, no recent examples, but I bet nothing has changed. And, other forums for other games are exactly the same. I guess it is easier to only look for the inflamed responses, than to watch for trolls being trollish?
But, those are my thoughts...
Now I'm going to give an example and well use Toril and well Sword Coast and Thay as an example of how it works using as we can't talk about real life politcs or moderation.
Imagine, a Thayan company owns a sword coast company and operates in the Sword Coast, and the Thayan Company is owned by another Thayan Company above it.
Thay Is Bane aligned well not a Tyranny if you imagine a modern day thay but is controlled by a group of liches in a modern day Toril within the country of Thay they have this big magical shield of thay, Thus its known as the great magic shield of thay. They censor their people and they have their own toril wide web cut off from the rest of Torils. The combined states of Neverwinter Luskan and Waterdeep add in policies that cause a lot of sword coasten jobs to move to Thay in the hopes of getting them to stop sending over their undead armies, This causes a lot of products made in Sword Coast are now made in Thay and Thay trades sells the items they now make to the Sword Coast and people go to supermarkets and buy those Thus the products from Thay would say Made in Thay. Then you have a thayan company that is always about the money but is regulated and maybe heavly infuenced by thays goverment but they like any other company want money.
This Thayan Company buys up a sword coast company called Visible and then add in their own office in the sword coast. Lets just say the sword coast company Visible buys from another company taking a mmo called Star Wizards Online, the Sword Coast Company Visible takes over this mmo, adds in lootcrates called StarBoxes, Then all the ships are put in a store called ShipDock and they have to buy or farm a currency called stardust then refine it in order to trade for that games version of monetary currency. Then they make a Game Called, Boston Online, Put on a fictional setting called Earth in an area known as the new world. Then they make micro transactions, put in lock crates calling them Tea Crates Tea Crates give anything from mounts pets from the old world and ones from the new world and well by adding this feature they make lots of modern day Toril Currency doing it, They make the currency traded in from real toril money and they go ahead and call this the Boston Tea Leafs. Then the Major Currency is well Gold Ore or some exotic metal or maybe Sea Clam Pearls, and the ingame not used currency for major things on Bostons Ah, Pounds are this worlds main currency and they do a lorebreak and make the pearls or goldore the main currency of trade within that ah and the pounds are not worth much and only used for potions and well for removing weapon upgrades then they add in a new crafting overhaul and this makes Pounds valuable and this is called Module 16.
Then the player base, exploits a bug in mod 15 that allows them to get a lot more clam pearls/gold ore, and well lets say there is no refinement limit but a number of nodes that only allowed to be farmed up to 15 times per day and in the fishing boat adventuer, Players find a bug, not as bad as other bugs that did the same thing in breaking encomony but still pretty serious that allows them to farm more Clam Pearls, then normal. Say instead of fifteen they are making 30 per day. Clam Pearls, are traded for Boston Tea Leaves, and there is already way to many clam pearls in the game already and their is a huge backlog to trade pearls for boston tea leaves . The More Clam Pearls there are the less people are willing to buy the boston tea leaves and this hurts the thayan companies bottom line so to try and preserve the need for players to buy boston tea leaves, punish the players doing it giving them the fire ball to send players that used it on random vacations some permanent vacations. Lets say for example the Normal way to get pearls is to doing a queue system which instead of dungeons, its shoreline fishing adventures at the end after filling the fish barrel the pearls are gained. But can only get 15 once per per day for doing a random fishing adventure then the rest of the time you do them you only get one pearl.
Then you have a activity can get pearls by dumping tea barrels into the sea. To Curb well the many sources of Pearls ingame they take out the dumping tea barrels and then placing more pearls within the shore fishing adventure. To keep track of it and also adjust and monitor the pearl gains they put in a system where you can get newspapers and trade them in for pearls in place of the system where you can dump tea barrels. They are doing this to well get more people to buy boston tea leaves, because the companies above Visible, lets just say a lich is charge of the thayan company who answers to a higher more powerful lich who owns the company that owns Visible. The lich who controls the corporation owning the Sword Coast Company Visible . This lich tells the people at visible he more money and tells Visable to work on ways to get more players to by the Boston Tea Leaves because they are not getting enough profit from Boston Online even though they got millions from the Locked tea crates. So they are adding in these measures to both balance out boston onlines economy and well get more real currency from the playerbase. The playerbase keeps finding ways so they can avoid investing money in and because of this they do more changes that nerfs the gain for clam pearls and well this is to be expected because they are just not investing money and need to get players to spend more money for the clam pearls. Hence the cycle and the problem is the clam pearls also have to be tided to the main currency of the ah. Thus the Claim pearls are well intergrated and players have thousands of them. Selling allows them to bypass the limits and well. They are the rich players and well have so much bosten tea leaves reserved not putting it on the tea leaf/clam pearl exchange and have thousands of clam pearls within their bank and on each character they used to farm the tea leaves with. Because of this while the newer players have to buy boston tea leaves and invest in tea box keys to either sell the contents of such, buy the upgrades and sell them or use the bosten tea leaves, to buy claim pearls on the Bosten Tea leaf/clam pearl exchange. More then the older players because this is what they are trying to do get more money invested in game.
Well enough of the exaggerated example of how it would be if this was future toril and we were not on earth. But the example I posted above kinda tells how it works, even though it might be different then the example I posted above in real life. Heres what players need to know. Yes this is free to play game but that does not mean its free, they want you to buy into it. Invest in it. Some players never will and when people find ways to bypass what is intended this well hurts their bottom line and people not willing to at least invest in the game has caused them to well change it. Had more people bought Zen and used it to buy ad instead of just using ad to buy it from those that do sell the zen on the zax things would be a lot different. I think if they were to start all over they would do it different where zen is more in flux then ad. Ad Being far more valuable and hard to get. But because of the way its set up well not much they can do at the moment other then nerf it and maybe raising the cap.
> Hey folks, I just wanted to step in and say that I'm reading all the comments posted here with great interest, as this is an important matter to me. But this is Frozen's thread so I don't want to derail it or refocus the attention in a way he did not intend. But, I'm here. I'm reading. And I'm keeping an open mind.
^^^^ this is probably one of the very few reasons people including myself have decided to suck up the recent issue and move on. Direct contact even tho some is lost the forums are being read and we are being heard. Like ive posted before with winterfest every year the goodies that are free will make up for all probablems. I keep pulling up the zen purchase screen but im still hesitant to buy as i dont want to spend money and it be a waste. Alot of us are worried. Heck i refuse to run fbi anymore along with a bunch of my friends unless we are in a premade group. No more pub q and def no advanced q for me. Too scary for reasons everyone knows. But i try keeping positive and look at winterfest as the saving grace because the daily free gifts can be worth quite a bit. As ive played on xbox and ps4 i can say if it wasnt for winterfest alot of people wouldnt have so many mounts and companions. Thanks for being interactive with us. Just try being more tansparant with us. It woulda went a loooong way the past week.
Keep up the good work Frozen. I like what I've seen so far.
Am i the only one who is asking why?
Why cant ppl talk here? Why cant banned players just saying they are sorry or what they feel? Why cant any honest player state what he/she thinks about the bannwave?
Sry, but i have to ask: Does PW something hide?
Nobody is outright banned for anything. That being said, you really cannot expect such things to be allowed. A lot more happens than just discussing moderation which absolutely cannot be allowed and moreover, what's the point of moderation if it were?"
(I lost some formating)
I wrote:
This seems very elephant in the room to me. We all know it's there. We all visit it. It's got very useful information for the game . Yeah so what if they discuss things that the forum is officially against. they also have really useful guides. The forum can't and shouldn't try to control freedom of speech outside it's walls. the mere mention of it or linking to something that actually is on topic is kind of overboard imo.
sometimes moderation can seem to go a little too far. I get some things but others just seem totalitarian.
I am an administrator on a bunch of art world forums. I totally get the thin lines. I have a similar type thing that I have to be totalitarian about because of death threats that had happened in the past. I know it seems overboard to the casual observer.. So I get there could be more to this than meets the eye. but....
The communication is not good from the company to it's consumers and the feeling that things are silenced doesn't build good will. we've been saying for years and will continue to say that forthright communication would really help. (not from the mods but from the devs or whatever gods that may be. Every now and again it seems like there is a real effort for more communication adn we always appreciate that.. but then Silence again.
And as far as taking problems with the mods too the mods.. actually I don't even think my problem was with a mod now that I think more about it. but a problem I was having with someone else. but that didn't go well for me personally. Granted mostly different team now but that was probably the most unpleasant experience I've experienced in quite some time. basically shut me down at the door without even listening. I can see why people look for outside sources. It's not something I'd want to repeat. It was actually humiliating.
As far as discussing exploits I get why that's a rule but it would be nice to have some official word on things. Statements on the matter, after the fact if nothing else or during the fact making it clear that something IS an exploit and not a feature. There were talks of bans YEARS after people had been looking in the treasure chest and not taking the loot. WHO EVEN KNEW that wasn't how it was supposed to be ....
This company operates on never talk about the elephant in the room and that isn't really healthy imo. It would be really nice to have some gradients in the rules.
It's (it being everything or nothing or whatever is timely) out there. Closing the door on the official forums seems disingenuous and practically begs for people to go elsewhere to talk about things.
In recent news, there were people playing a game. one without a lot of known rules or formats as it was a new game. a lot of these people they were just meeting random strangers in chat saying come party with us. it's all good do what we tell you. but then they woke up wiht their pockets empty and no kidneys and no way to talk to anyone to find out what had happened.
get what I mean?
There is a huge difference between saying this exists. go here do that press up up down down up and wow! and letting people know there are things they shouldn't do or there will be consequences of x x and x. Doing things on a friday and then leaving when no one is responding to anyone is gonna create a hamster storm..
I know your job is hard and you don't get paid and you have years of angsty geeky verbal abuse ahead of you and I hope most of us don't blame the moderators. you're just doing what you're told for no fame or compensation. and I personally appreciate you keeping it civil. but it would be nice if we could work towards a little more understanding and openness in the forums. there would be a lot less backlash in other forums. Totalitarianism tends to breed rebellion. just saying is all.
Actions can have consequences! This is something most people learn as kids growing up....
Rules are there for a reason, adhere to them or at least take it on the chin if you get caught breaking them. Take responsibility, ignorance is just an excuse; one which doesn't hold up in most situations.
/end old peoples rant imitation
I think we could have left the disagree button tho, removing that was imo a little over zealous. Surely we are allowed to disagree?
Discussion of moderation - zero tolerance comes across a bit HAMSTER like to me, but probably an issue of where do you draw the line.
Overall, I think the Mods do a good job.
I had a post removed here and just could not work out on what basis it had been done, it said flaming and there clearly wasn't any, I've seen MUCH MUCH worse left and we wouldn't even think about modding it on our boards. One short sentence could have been removed if it wasn't liked and the rest was fully constructive. It was on a balance issue that a lot of elite players don't want discussed, so I guess they all reported it.
maybe im just lazy (hence why no punctuation)
If you agree with someone's points, making a post stating that doesn't bring anything new to the discussion, it just litters the thread and makes it harder to read. If you disagree with someone, there should be a reason, and that could be posted to encourage further discussion.
Speaking of littering the thread, one of the things that bother me the most are huge blockquotes. I'm used to forums where such things are frowned upon. In my mind quotes should be used when referring to a specific point made in a post, and not the whole post. @frozenfirevr 's post above is a good example of that, and @vampinator10 's is the opposite.
I do agree wholeheartedly with comments about comms within the game though, not everyone comes here to read warnings about ToS violations. It would have been brilliant if the hunts lady (I would check her name, but maintenance...) could have sent an email in game saying she’s got her eye on people cheating her hunts and that there would be dire consequences to those cheating.
And before anyone bemoans my use of the word cheating rather than exploiting, in the context of an NPC saying it they would call it cheating as they don’t know they are in a game with exploits.
"Also, please keep in mind that at no time is it permissible to post about or discuss Game/Forum Infractions, Forum Moderation, Rules, Terms, EULA, or Legal Claims on our forums."
This topic is just damage control trying to keep people in line. There are other places to discuss NeverwinterOnline in more open and non controlled ways and it appears to be freaking you out.
I personally do not want a "safe space". After all, we're not all playing Mollycoddle Nights...
And yes, I for one know that I have said things to chafe the bottoms of Neverwinter's Trolls, but if they choose start something... at the very least. please give the serious gamers of Neverwinter a fair chance to speak up and be heard...