PWI Forum Rule Updates! 2013-07-15

v4liance

Hey everyone,

The PWI Team has decided to make some changes to the forum rules.

In case you weren't aware, this forum has rules! They're located here.

Modifications to Rules 18 and 19:

[Update again to 18!]
18. No public discussion about disciplinary action administered to members.
This rule applies to both in-game actions and forum actions. If you have any questions regarding in-game rules, disciplinary actions, user bans, etc., please contact the support team. If you have any questions regarding forum issues, please contact a moderator or the Community Manager via private message.

[Update again to 19!]
19. No discussion about competing MMORPG's (including other versions of PW) and other similar games on any of these boards. This includes other Free to Play games. This includes discussion about competing gaming companies. Discussion of other PWE titles is allowed in the Off-Topic and Fanatics forums. Discussion of China's version of PW is allowed.

Addition of Rule 24:

24. No promoting the violation of Terms of Service or any of these rules.
Solicitation of violations is, in and of itself, a violation.

- Val

Zheii - Archosaur

Ah more rule changes o.o.

Interesting to see that the new rule has been enforced about the ToS, seems to be quite a bit of controversy around it recently...

On another note though, anyone who blatantly supports breaking of the ToS on the public forums isn't the smartest cookie in the jar ._. Wait no, they're just downright stupid xD.

Eliteknight - Sanctuary

well this is intresting..... will like to see how this pans out

Xx_BeLLa_xX - Harshlands

Well it's a nice rule (#24), but I think mods already do a great job and take care of it fast if someone try to promote or ask how do violate the ToS.

Unfortunately a lot of people just don't bother to read the rules. :S

Asone - Raging Tide

v4liance wrote: »

19. No discussion about competing MMORPG's (including other versions of PW) and other similar games on any of these boards. This includes other Free to Play games. This includes discussion about competing gaming companies. Discussion of other PWE titles is allowed in the Off-Topic and Fanatics forums.

Ok so I guess we won't be seeing any of those nice update threads that Bubbles makes for us out of the goodness of his heart anymore. b:cry

ovenusarmanio

Hey, you! Thanks for the update.

Asone - Raging Tide wrote: »

Ok so I guess we won't be seeing any of those nice update threads that Bubbles makes for us out of the goodness of his heart anymore. b:cry

The this is what we are getting form China threads have always been an exception, since that is where we get our content from. Even Frankie used to say that, the main thing that has been updated on that rule is you can discuss other PWE titles in off-topic and fanatics now.

Asone - Raging Tide

oVenusArmanio wrote: »

Hey, you! Thanks for the update.



The this is what we are getting form China threads have always been an exception, since that is where we get our content from. Even Frankie used to say that, the main thing that has been updated on that rule is you can discuss other PWE titles in off-topic and fanatics now.

Nice! Good to hear. Guess I missed those threads at some point. Yay! I can stop freaking out now.b:chuckle

Manii - Harshlands

PWI enforcing ToS, 3 years later XD after the game is on decline.

Nibaki - Heavens Tear

Manii - Harshlands wrote: »

PWI enforcing ToS, 3 years later XD after the game is on decline.

I'm actually seeing TONS of newbies at spawn, newbies in faction. Seeing people doing quests/LF Help with their fb19 and bh's who don't want higher level help. So i believe the game is actually slowly becoming more active.

Breannak - Raging Tide

Ty for the info.b:bye

thegreatgargame

Nibaki - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I'm actually seeing TONS of newbies at spawn, newbies in faction. Seeing people doing quests/LF Help with their fb19 and bh's who don't want higher level help. So i believe the game is actually slowly becoming more active.

I agree, seems more active now then it did a year back.

Psytrac - Dreamweaver

**** the "new" rule 18. doing rule updates that you guys will never enforce is stupid. and there's things much more important with your time to do. We all talk about discipline within each other. let this be. When we want to find out why something happens, should we not be allowed? Why is it that discussing things seems to be more and more against the rules? You guys continually break your own filters, and bypassing this is banable. but where's the acknowledgement of breaking so much on your own because you can't do a SIMPLE fix job. why does something 90% of the knowledgeable people 5 minutes to do takes 2-3 months for you to do, and you NEVER own up to any of it publicly

NW glitches, can't even FORCELOG into the game, dc on entering, be out for 15 minutes while gdelivery decides I'm not there.. (PWI structure is well-documented, as far as what daemons actually exist and what they're responsible for)

GS has detection bugs out the ***.. invisible walls, fall through floors, mobs can run vertical walls, melee attacks can be used from 20m away...

or here's a novel idea.. Instead of making new rules. enforce your current ones.

skaitavia

Hey Val,

Thanks for the updates, but I have a question! Would threads discussing possible content updates in the future be allowed? Most of which are talking about PWCN, since their updates usually come to us in due time.

v4liance

Asone - Raging Tide wrote: »

Ok so I guess we won't be seeing any of those nice update threads that Bubbles makes for us out of the goodness of his heart anymore. b:cry

Skaitavia wrote: »

Hey Val,

Thanks for the updates, but I have a question! Would threads discussing possible content updates in the future be allowed? Most of which are talking about PWCN, since their updates usually come to us in due time.

Whoops! As Venus pointed out, this has actually already been allowed!

I've modified Rule 19 to clarify that discussing China's version of PW is allowed. I think it's fun and healthy to look at upcoming updates and to speculate wildly, even if many of those updates don't apply to PWI

- Val

skaitavia

v4liance wrote: »

Whoops! As Venus pointed out, this has actually already been allowed!

I've modified Rule 19 to clarify that discussing China's version of PW is allowed. I think it's fun and healthy to look at upcoming updates and to speculate wildly, even if many of those updates don't apply to PWI

- Val

Ah! I should have read the replies first b:surrender xD

And I agree. I love reading those threads. Anticipation is one way to keep a player playing. Thanks for the clarification.

Psytrac - Dreamweaver

v4liance wrote: »

Whoops! As Venus pointed out, this has actually already been allowed!

I've modified Rule 19 to clarify that discussing China's version of PW is allowed. I think it's fun and healthy to look at upcoming updates and to speculate wildly, even if many of those updates don't apply to PWI

- Val

19. No discussion about competing MMORPG's (including other versions of PW, except w2i) and other similar games on any of these boards. This includes other Free to Play games. This includes discussion about competing gaming companies. Discussion of other PWE titles is allowed in the Off-Topic and Fanatics forums.

^much easier way to say it?

v4liance

Psytrac - Dreamweaver wrote: »

**** the "new" rule 18. doing rule updates that you guys will never enforce is stupid. and there's things much more important with your time to do. We all talk about discipline within each other. let this be. When we want to find out why something happens, should we not be allowed? Why is it that discussing things seems to be more and more against the rules? You guys continually break your own filters, and bypassing this is banable. but where's the acknowledgement of breaking so much on your own because you can't do a SIMPLE fix job. why does something 90% of the knowledgeable people 5 minutes to do takes 2-3 months for you to do, and you NEVER own up to any of it publicly

NW glitches, can't even FORCELOG into the game, dc on entering, be out for 15 minutes while gdelivery decides I'm not there.. (PWI structure is well-documented, as far as what daemons actually exist and what they're responsible for)

GS has detection bugs out the ***.. invisible walls, fall through floors, mobs can run vertical walls, melee attacks can be used from 20m away...

or here's a novel idea.. Instead of making new rules. enforce your current ones.

Hey Psytrac, I'm sorry you're frustrated with this rule modification.

I'd like to first point out that we absolutely appreciate when players such as yourself inform us about in-game bugs and general concerns and issues.

But regarding the discussion of disciplinary actions, please note that the "change" to Rule 18 actually hasn't changed our current enforcement of the rules; this was just a clarification. It has always been against our rules to discuss punishments, either from in game or on the forums. This change just made that absolutely apparent.

The primary concern here is that if someone is unhappy with a disciplinary action, it's far better for them and for us if we can engage in a direct dialogue about it, rather than publicly discussing the details.

These rules are always in flux, and we're always trying to find the right balance in helping our players and maintaining a friendly and positive community.

- Val

Psytrac - Dreamweaver

v4liance wrote: »

I'd like to first point out that we absolutely appreciate when players such as yourself inform us about in-game bugs and general concerns and issues.

appreciate but completely ignore? for 4 years? I've been here for 4 years and if the bug doesn't involve the cash shoppers it is pretty much ignored. Want examples? ask. Don't want to discuss it in public? My PM box is open.

v4liance wrote: »

But regarding the discussion of disciplinary actions, please note that the "change" to Rule 18 actually hasn't changed our current enforcement of the rules; this was just a clarification. It has always been against our rules to discuss punishments, either from in game or on the forums. This change just made that absolutely apparent.

The problem with that all is that "Hey my account got banned, I got <X reason> in the notice, what does this mean?"

Even players could explain it, and that's not a bad thing, and it promotes discussion more than it causes problems. if it gets out of hand, sure, handle it. but This has never caused problems anywhere I've been before, and hell, it was on all their rules completely unenforced too..

ovenusarmanio

v4liance wrote: »

18. No public discussion about disciplinary action administered to members.
This rule applies to both in-game actions and forum actions. If you have any questions regarding in-game rules, disciplinary actions, user bans, etc., please contact the support team. If you have any questions regarding forum issues, please contact a moderator and/or the Community Manager via private message.

Fixed for you. >> Unless we are no longer handling forum concerns after moderation? Not sure if you want that, my mailbox has 325 messages atm. All resolved, like a boss. ^_^; Sure other mods have even more.

@Psytrac

Rule 18's update primarily just say you should take up with the CM instead of rage creating tons of threads because of forum discipline. This has always been the case but it wasn't clear and easily missed before. The old rule said that you should contact them for "even a thread move," but that part was easily missed. This lack of clarity has caused a LOT of problems for the mod team, I've even been bothered in world chat over a thread move before. >> Those kinds of things happen, because people don't know that they can just come talk to us about it. I've had plenty of people apologize after because they didn't know they could just talk to us, that type of communication with the moderators wasn't around in other forums. So their only recourse was to throw a huge fit. It isn't the case here. There hasn't been any change to that rule as it's enforced (unless he wants us mods to forward concerns to him now), only to the clarity of it.

As for whether or not bans should be discussed on the forums, I can't speak for PWE but personally I disagree. General complaints relevant to the whole playerbase is already able to be discussed such as ini edits/goon glitch, etc. And specific bans are not something everyone can do something about. It's not relevant to the playerbase, and very little good can come from such threads. Majority of them get trolled into oblivion when the last longer because the mod team didn't notice them. It's better suited for the people who actually have the information relevant, the banner and the banned. Not to mention, problem customers are rarely allowed to pester the customers in other businesses either. For example, if you get thrown out of a club nobody in line wants to hear your complain about it. And the bouncer will tell you to leave, you won't be allowed to do so. For general concerns, they can already be brought in. I dont' see why your specific ban has to be discussed as well.

DoodsWH - Sanctuary

oVenusArmanio wrote: »

Fixed for you. >> Unless we are no longer handling forum concerns after moderation? Not sure if you want that, my mailbox has 325 messages atm. All resolved, like a boss. ^_^; Sure other mods have even more.

@Psytrac

Rule 18's update primarily just say you should take up with the CM instead of rage creating tons of threads because of forum discipline. This has always been the case but it wasn't clear and easily missed before. The old rule said that you should contact them for "even a thread move," but that part was easily missed. This lack of clarity has caused a LOT of problems for the mod team, I've even been bothered in world chat over a thread move before. >> Those kinds of things happen, because people don't know that they can just come talk to us about it. I've had plenty of people apologize after because they didn't know they could just talk to us, that type of communication with the moderators wasn't around in other forums. So their only recourse was to throw a huge fit. It isn't the case here. There hasn't been any change to that rule as it's enforced (unless he wants us mods to forward concerns to him now), only to the clarity of it.

As for whether or not bans should be discussed on the forums, I can't speak for PWE but personally I disagree. General complaints relevant to the whole playerbase is already able to be discussed such as ini edits/goon glitch, etc. And specific bans are not something everyone can do something about. It's not relevant to the playerbase, and very little good can come from such threads. Majority of them get trolled into oblivion when the last longer because the mod team didn't notice them. It's better suited for the people who actually have the information relevant, the banner and the banned. Not to mention, problem customers are rarely allowed to pester the customers in other businesses either. For example, if you get thrown out of a club nobody in line wants to hear your complain about it. And the bouncer will tell you to leave, you won't be allowed to do so. For general concerns, they can already be brought in. I dont' see why your specific ban has to be discussed as well.

Not a good analogy because i can protest the establishment outside legally if i don't like it and raise concerns in a public area in full view of the bouncers.You cant do the same here. People want to know how things are handled. maybe the dude was out of line but how was he thrown out. escorted out or basiaclly beat up, dragged and tossed outside? Seen it happen.

As far as resolving an issue with the very mod that did something/whatever is completely one sided. sorry but i agree any problems with mods should go straight to the community manager and let them decide. keeps the mods more honest that way .

ovenusarmanio

DoodsWH - Sanctuary wrote: »

Not a good analogy because i can protest the establishment outside legally if i don't like it and raise concerns in a public area in full view of the bouncers.You cant do the same here. People want to know how things are handled. maybe the dude was out of line but how was he thrown out. escorted out or basiaclly beat up, dragged and tossed outside? Seen it happen.

Then it sounds to me like the rule you have a big issue with is the ticket system being considered private communication. Which is a separate issue. All chaning the rule would change it from

"I think that we should be able to ini edit, it's not fair that people are getting banned"

to

"I think that we should be able to ini edit because my friend was banned for ini editing. And I didn't like it."

What does that serve? You can already discuss the validity of rules, you just can't discuss specific bans. And if you read the forums you'd know the majority are

"Help! I was banned for no reason! What do I do!"

To which the only answer the playerbase can give is "submit a ticket"

That is all. Private communication still wouldn't be allowed on the forums, so PWE wouldn't post what they did. And they similarly would not be able to post how PWE treated them. So no, it's no like seeing whether or not the person was roughed up. It's more like allowing them to pester people in-line for no reason. It helps nobody and serves nothing.

DoodsWH - Sanctuary wrote: »

As far as resolving an issue with the very mod that did something/whatever is completely one sided. sorry but i agree any problems with mods should go straight to the community manager and let them decide. keeps the mods more honest that way .

Hence the and/or, I didn't say that CMs should be bypassed completely. Just that people should have the option to contact us and work it out with us. And we have all reversed decisions we made when people sent us a PM. It wouldn't do anything to keep me honest, I keep myself honest but even still...honestly it would make it easier for me to get away with **** if I did feel like doing something I knew was wrong. Because say the other mods similarly have like 300 messages. That's 1800 messages that would be added to the CMs plate versus one or two when someone feels they can't deal with us for whatever reason. So if I improperly moved a thread, and 10 other people claimed the same thing even though they were dead wrong. I'd be much more likely to get away with it than if the CM only had to devote time to investigating that one thread move. Already, private messages you send with us our stored on your end and the only that deletes them is you. If you don't like something we did and you feel we are being too one-sided, or feel we were abusive, you can report us to the CM. In addition, the CM can see all edits we or anyone else made to a thread. They can see everything we've deleted, and they can see all the infractions we've placed on someone's account. He can (and has) reverse editing decisions we've made when reported to him. They can take disciplinary action against us if we actually did abuse our power. That's way more compelling than passing off all the volunteer stuff I do on him, while never having to answer for it myself.

So there is already a CM monitored element to everything we do. Our chat history in-game, our thread edits, the fact our PMs do not disappear, all of these serve to make sure that we conduct ourselves the way the CM wants us too. Not that it is needed. It's just a safeguard. All of us, we follow rules anyway. The reason we were chosen is because we are all already trustworthy players. If he wants to answer all PMs, instead of only the important ones, that's fine. But he is already monitoring us. So I see no reason why there shouldn't be a line informing people they can PM us if they have a question about the forum. We are already faster than the PWE is without every forum inquiry going to them.

DoodsWH - Sanctuary

Just because you say mods are trustworthy doesn't make it so. I used to mod . I would even tell you the company but against the rules. I can show u in they tickets they sent me to go to forums instead of actually helping me. again I cant cause its against the rules. As far as talking about people bans could care less. Im talking about mods threatening to ban you and deleting there own posts. I have screenshots and i can tell you he was breaking the rules as much as I was. Again cant talk about it. Dont really care what you tell me, you are a volunteer with no authority beyond thread moderation unless like the other place i was at if u promoted one step u could do ticketing. The fact PWI is a publishing company and the other place i was also, there are alot of similarities in the support structure. if so i have even less confidence about your statement. but no real point hashing things out that neither of us can change other then to say our piece. Been around a long time. anyways enjoy b:bye

ovenusarmanio

DoodsWH - Sanctuary wrote: »

Just because you say mods are trustworthy doesn't make it so. I used to mod . I would even tell you the company but against the rules. I can show u in they tickets they sent me to go to forums instead of actually helping me. again I cant cause its against the rules. As far as talking about people bans could care less. Im talking about mods threatening to ban you and deleting there own posts. I have screenshots and i can tell you he was breaking the rules as much as I was. Again cant talk about it. Dont really care what you tell me, you are a volunteer with no authority beyond thread moderation unless like the other place i was at if u promoted one step u could do ticketing. The fact PWI is a publishing company and the other place i was also, there are alot of similarities in the support structure. if so i have even less confidence about your statement. but no real point hashing things out that neither of us can change other then to say our piece. Been around a long time. anyways enjoy b:bye

Mods cannot ban people, nor can we hide our posts even if we delete them. The CM can still see them. If you feel a mod treated you poorly, just talk to the CM. You can give him the screenshots, but it doesn't matter he can see the posts anyway. There isn't promotion, and we don't have the power to ban. If a moderator deleted their post, then it was probably because they were being a human and decided they didn't want you see what they said. Because it doesn't hide any wrongdoing. The CM can see all posts even deleted ones. And PWI doesn't just let any player mod, they checked us all out. We would not be mods if we were untrustworthy. OFC that doesn't stop us from being human, humans make errors. Or someone might go rouge and abuse their power. But there is not anything we can do that the CM cannot see, there is already a system in place for abuse. I don't see how making it harder for him to discern the people complaining because we did our job from potential people who have a legitimate complaint by flooding his inbox with like 1000 posts in addition to his other responsibilities.

Again, the rule I'm asking if something is changing isn't anything to do with mod abuse. Currently if the mod is abusive, or you get nowhere with the mod and you feel they are too biased, you talk to the CM. You can also talk to the CM if you just do not feel like talking to the mod. But you can also just PM the mod in question. I'm not talking about mod abuse. I'm talking about why should the CM answer every single last question about the forums. You can already talk to the CM until the cows come home if you feel like, and you always will be able to. Nobody is saying anything even close to that. I'm asking you why should the CM handle every single last inquiry no matter how mundane, and no matter how much quicker it would be handled by asking the mods? You are claiming that NO question should be answered by the mod team. That players should not be informed that they have the option, and the option should be taken away. SO why?

krisnda

DoodsWH - Sanctuary wrote: »

Not a good analogy because i can protest the establishment outside legally if i don't like it and raise concerns in a public area in full view of the bouncers.You cant do the same here. People want to know how things are handled. maybe the dude was out of line but how was he thrown out. escorted out or basiaclly beat up, dragged and tossed outside? Seen it happen.

As far as resolving an issue with the very mod that did something/whatever is completely one sided. sorry but i agree any problems with mods should go straight to the community manager and let them decide. keeps the mods more honest that way .

Again, instead of making a bunch of threads about something that a mod did, you ALWAYS have the option to pm the Community Manager (heck, you could send a ticket and a email about something a mod did) and they will handle it.

Your post doesn't make much sense.

Yuna_Sama - Heavens Tear

v4liance wrote: »

In case you weren't aware, this forum has rules!

It does? f:ponder

Xx_BeLLa_xX - Harshlands

DoodsWH - Sanctuary wrote: »

As far as resolving an issue with the very mod that did something/whatever is completely one sided. sorry but i agree any problems with mods should go straight to the community manager and let them decide. keeps the mods more honest that way .

I think the first step should be to pm the concerned mod. If that don't work than the second step should be to pm the CM, I'm sure in 75% of the cases, the issue could be fix with a talk in pm with the concerned mod, but a lot of people don't even try.

But lately I saw more and more posts that get totally deleted (mines and others people) and in that case we have no indication which mod did it, which make it impossible to pm the mod if the person want to ask why. I think mods should edit the post or reply saying something like: ''Xx_BeLLa_xX - Harshlands: Your post have been deleted for flaming or w/e reason.'' so at least people can know which mod to contact.

I didn't felt like my posts that got deleted was that important, but if one day that happen that a post I consider important get deleted, that mean I will need to contact the CM to say ''A mod deleted my post, but I don't know which mod'' which will give a lot of work to the CM for something that could have probably be fix with the mod directly if I knew which one to contact.

So I have nothing about a mod deleting posts, but the mod should let know that he/she deleted the post so the player can pm the mod if he feel that wasn't fair. (or edit it beside to delete it)

The few times I had to pm mods for any issues, it got fixed fast and there was no need of the CM. People just need to growth up and act like adults, if you have a issue with your boss at your job, will you try to fix it with him or go see directly the big boss without try anything? The big boss will probably ask you as first question if you tried to fix the issue with your boss, if you answer no than you look stupid. When I had any issues with my boss I wasn't going to see the big boss directly, I was trying to fix the issues with my boss first and if it didn't work than yes I was going higher.

DoodsWH - Sanctuary

Krisnda wrote: »

Your post doesn't make much sense.[/QUOTE

Try reading the whole thread before responding then. It was venuses edit of adding moderator as to who to contact. All I stated was vals post without moderator in there is what i agreed with and should be kept like that.

So again. Think before typing.

v4liance

Hey folks.

Just to clarify - players are free to contact the mods regarding forum issues, and they're also free to contact the CM. One does not preclude the other, nor are you *required* to contact one, both, or either.

- Val

Psytrac - Dreamweaver

AngryHam - Archosaur wrote: »

Will someone please help me. Game Version 719 has been "updating" for a while now. And every now and again it says "error" and starts all over. Anyone know what the problem is?

wand that has what to do with this tread exactly?


(also, download the manual 719-729 patch)

Xx_BeLLa_xX - Harshlands

Psytrac - Dreamweaver wrote: »

wand that has what to do with this tread exactly?


(also, download the manual 719-729 patch)

The fact that if you check his registration date on the forum and his post count you will see that the guy cannot start a new thread.

@AngryHam: Check in the Technical Support Zone section to see if someone had the same problem.

ovenusarmanio

*creates new thread for angryham* (click)