> @lordsteve1 said: I really don't think having some sort of Stasi like organisation to keep watch over all the players like these players think they are part of is something that needs to be encouraged.
If everyone playing was psycologically vetted and confirmed to be a responsible adult then we would all be fine.
But the sad fact is some of the people playing this game are deviants and harmful to other people.
Some even have criminal records.
Those kind of people should not even have the freedom to abuse the bio system by having free reign to post whatever they want for some unsuspecting person to view.
It is worth giving up a little bit of freedom in a silly fiction game to keep the innocent among us safe from the wolves.
Well, you are certainly entitled to your opinion. But I for one am not willing to sacrifice my freedom (little or otherwise) just because others may be unable to control themselves in polite soceity.
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All of my characters have bios(I like to provide some background, and/or say where they are from if an alien, etc), none of my characters are super powered, or over powered nearly unstoppable beings, or whatever it is some people do. If someone wants to read the bio they can. If they don't want to read a bio, then don't. I like to see if other people within STO have a bio for their character in game. The length of the bios is good enough for me. On some of my characters I wish it was longer, on others I have space left over. Overall, I believe the length they allow in game is good enough for most purposes.
To sum it up, I write bios because I am a creative sort of person, some interests in writing, art, etc. *shrugs*
I have even given some of my bridge officers bios too, on one in particular, reading the bios of my captain/character and the bios of many of his bridge officers ends up telling a short story sort of thing, about how the family got back together serving on the captains ship. Most of my characters though, don't have bios on most bridge officers, a few here or there, if I wanted to make it clearer to any reading it, or the sort of look I was trying to convey with how a bridge officer looks, or stuff, or something. *shrugs*
@stoleviathan999#6673 you really did just argue in favour of reducing the freedoms of the players so that you and certain other parties can filter out people who you arbitrarily decide are undesirables or deviants?!?
You do realise this is a Star Trek computer game right? Not some police state simulation being run by facisistic controlling parties. The sort of thing you propose has no place in a game like STO, or even in any other game for that mater.
I write bios. I enjoy writing. Anybody who likes can click on one of my toons and read the bio. Anyone who doesn't want to, doesn't have to. Freedom, it's a wonderful thing.
I will, on occasion, click on other people, particularly if they've got an interesting-looking toon, and see if they've got a bio. Usually, they haven't; sometimes, they have, and it's interesting. I don't, personally, mind if people role-play inside a role-playing game. Perhaps I'm just weird.
I've never run up against the character limit myself, though I do remember talking to someone who had, once... can't remember what it is, though.
The idea that bios need to be policed for... whatever... strikes me as silly, to be honest. If I was a terrorist or a deviant, the last place I'd leave evidence of terrorism or deviancy is in an in-game piece of text which anybody and his dog can see. I'd keep my terrorism and/or deviancy to myself. (Besides, this is the Internet, and anyone who wants terrorism or deviancy can probably find it without faffing around with in-game bios.)
So after barely one page of this thread, some folks have already started comparing others to cancer/fascists/the stasi, simply because a couple of minor suggestions (by people who don't have any power to change anything) to improve ingame biographies have been made. Its nice to see folks remembering this is just a game and keeping things civil and proportionate...
I do think it should be made easier to report inappropriate content in character bios though. Several people in this thread - including a couple who don't usually agree with eachother - have highlighted the problems with people putting inappropriate material (ERP/furrystuff/paedophilic material) in their bios.
As for my view on bios, I put a bit of effort into making my first couple of characters, including bios. But then I realised that they went through the exact same storyline as literally every other player ingame so what was the point? Now I only add something in there if its a joke/comedy character.
So after barely one page of this thread, some folks have already started comparing others to cancer/fascists/the stasi, simply because a couple of minor suggestions (by people who don't have any power to change anything) to improve ingame biographies have been made. Its nice to see folks remembering this is just a game and keeping things civil and proportionate...
I do think it should be made easier to report inappropriate content in character bios though. Several people in this thread - including a couple who don't usually agree with eachother - have highlighted the problems with people putting inappropriate material (ERP/furrystuff/paedophilic material) in their bios.
As for my view on bios, I put a bit of effort into making my first couple of characters, including bios. But then I realised that they went through the exact same storyline as literally every other player ingame so what was the point? Now I only add something in there if its a joke/comedy character.
Improve how? By putting limits and restrictions on players? That isn't necessarily an improvement.
Aren't there already mechanisms in place for reporting player conduct/activity? Can't those same mechanisms be used to report the inappropriate material in character bios?
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator and Resident She-Wolf
Community Moderators are Unpaid Volunteers and NOT Employees of Gearbox/Cryptic
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
A society is a society, be it in a video game or in the real world. The same rules apply regardless. And there was nothing political about my comment. Franklin was a philosopher more than a politician.
While limiting number of characters in a bio may be a decent suggestion, I don't think it will help in this case, or perhaps do more harm then good. If biographies that were breaking the terms of service was a real problem something would of been done about it by now. There should not be any self imposed "biography police" made up of normal players like most of us. If a particular bio or person is breaking the terms of service, file an in game report, and let Cryptic deal with it. That's all that is needed in most cases.
Doesn't usually take folks too long to explain how their temporally-orphaned cat/orion/mystery hybrid princess with superpowers/super-IQ was found by a faction-appropriate captain who took them as a pet/freed slave/companion which ultimately led to them getting their own command and companions.
Anyway, limit is 2000 characters (not counting new lines) or 1000 lines, whichever comes first.
Thank you, I love making long bios too, adds to the character and story and etc, the longer the better!
Please keep in mind, what I posted earlier - that it's solely my personal opinion. I clearly do not have any authority to make such a decision. I just thought I'd clear that one up; as there seems to be a confusion.
[10:20] Your Lunge deals 4798 (2580) Physical Damage(Critical) to Tosk of Borg.
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator "bIghojchugh DaneH, Dumev pagh. bIghojqangbe'chugh, DuQaHlaH pagh." "Learn lots. Don't judge. Laugh for no reason. Be nice. Seek happiness."~Day[9] "Your fun isn't wrong."~LaughingTrendy
EDIT: Ninja'd by @Jodarkrider. That will teach me to start typing something and then going off to make a cup of tea before sending.
As far as I know, the Community Moderators are volunteers and not Cryptic/PWE employees - they do not make decisions on game content nor have any influence regarding changes to game systems (though at times I wish they did! I agree with Askray and Jodarkrider on quite a few issues, particularly regarding last year's tailor nerfs, etc!), so their posts should not be interpreted as any kind of decision on the topic under discussion by either company.
Similarly, without wishing to speak for her, its seems self-evident that she was talking in her personal capacity as a player, sharing her view on the subjects being discussed - all of which are very much on-topic. I saw no indication that she was acting as a moderator and intended for that to be the final word on either matter and that all further discussion should cease (both from the tone/content, and the fact that such posts are usually highlighted in green text).
Returning back to topic after the above unfortunate derail, I do agree that encouraging brevity would probably help incentivise quality over quantity in bios. In addition, despite having no other ingame issues, I always seem to experience constant problems when trying to load people's bio pages (only part of the char information/bio shows, and it is sometimes incorrect), so anything that lightens the server load is welcome.
On balance though I personally don't think the length should be shortened - but I doubt its worth lengthening them either - nature abhors a vacuum and people would just be tempted to fill it with waffle.
And there is a huge distinction between "American style" and "European style" (often also called "German style") games and gamers.
Funny, my friend lived in Germany for awhile years ago and we play Battletech. He'd always mention how the German players didn't consider anything beyond Level 1 tech to be 'true' Battletech gaming. And with all the crazy tech they've added to that game in the last rulebook iteration, I can start to see their point of view!
Some of my toons have bios. Mostly 4-5 sentences and humorous, but get the backstory across. I don't expect anyone to see them. Hell, for all I know, Cryptic did a SNAFU and lost all that data again like they did a few years ago! It's been at least a year since I bothered to look there myself.
Sometimes I think I play STO just to have something to complain about on the forums.
The same rules of decency which applies to the chat also apply to bios. If you see something violating these report that. If you fear to read something which hurt your virgin eyes you are wrong in an MMO to begin with; an hour in ESD chat at prime time should prove that. Also: if you don't like long bios *drum roll* do not read them.
But yeah, better lets waste Cryptics already far to short amount of dev time to redo something you do not care to begin with just to TRIBBLE off those that do.
IDIC... Let's not limit the IDIC of this game anymore... Rather than taking away we should be adding... there's already many things being taken away slowly, we don't need to limit what would fall under UGC...
Also this thread got derailed soo bad... It hurts my eyes that were not keeping to the TOS, as some say...
Yes there's a limit... How many characters it is? Only a cryptic developer can answer that for you OP!
A couple of days ago, there was a guy going on an anti semitic rant in zone chat. I reported him, I suppose others did, too. Whether it does any good, I don't know, agreed.
I still don't think my ability to use the chat should be cut to avoid long rants to weed out those who put stupid things into it. Which are quite a few. Yes, I DO think many of the things done in game by players are inappropriate in the spirit of oversexualization. I haven't read enough bios of others to really comment on the frequency of content as described by some here, I never encountered any, apart from obvious badly written Mary Sues, which are stupid but really nothing to write home about.
And the idea to not only limit because of (presumedly) amoral issues but also because of some quality checks (like the Mary Sue "youngest ever to complete and everybody loves her") is really making me hope for somebody trying out Poe's Law here. If I were to apply standards like this to the world, so many stuff in TV, movies, gaming, books wouldn't exist, and I haven't even touched the music these days.
It is against the forums TOS to discuss politics, so please stop breaking the rules.
I am not talking about politics I am talking about a fake video game world.
You are talking about your set of ethics though, and ways to handle it so it becomes enforced in places. Which is the very definition of a part of politics. The rule certainly applies to discussing real world politics not pertaining to the game. And a quote by a politician is not automatically politics, especially if he's as dead as said politician happens to be.
Even if it is a fake video game world, it pertains to the real world out there. Otherwise the discussion wouldn't have started in the first place.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
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Well, you are certainly entitled to your opinion. But I for one am not willing to sacrifice my freedom (little or otherwise) just because others may be unable to control themselves in polite soceity.
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Moderation Problems/Issues? Please contact the Community Manager
Terms of Service / Community Rules and Policies / FCT
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To sum it up, I write bios because I am a creative sort of person, some interests in writing, art, etc. *shrugs*
I have even given some of my bridge officers bios too, on one in particular, reading the bios of my captain/character and the bios of many of his bridge officers ends up telling a short story sort of thing, about how the family got back together serving on the captains ship. Most of my characters though, don't have bios on most bridge officers, a few here or there, if I wanted to make it clearer to any reading it, or the sort of look I was trying to convey with how a bridge officer looks, or stuff, or something. *shrugs*
You do realise this is a Star Trek computer game right? Not some police state simulation being run by facisistic controlling parties. The sort of thing you propose has no place in a game like STO, or even in any other game for that mater.
I will, on occasion, click on other people, particularly if they've got an interesting-looking toon, and see if they've got a bio. Usually, they haven't; sometimes, they have, and it's interesting. I don't, personally, mind if people role-play inside a role-playing game. Perhaps I'm just weird.
I've never run up against the character limit myself, though I do remember talking to someone who had, once... can't remember what it is, though.
The idea that bios need to be policed for... whatever... strikes me as silly, to be honest. If I was a terrorist or a deviant, the last place I'd leave evidence of terrorism or deviancy is in an in-game piece of text which anybody and his dog can see. I'd keep my terrorism and/or deviancy to myself. (Besides, this is the Internet, and anyone who wants terrorism or deviancy can probably find it without faffing around with in-game bios.)
I do think it should be made easier to report inappropriate content in character bios though. Several people in this thread - including a couple who don't usually agree with eachother - have highlighted the problems with people putting inappropriate material (ERP/furrystuff/paedophilic material) in their bios.
As for my view on bios, I put a bit of effort into making my first couple of characters, including bios. But then I realised that they went through the exact same storyline as literally every other player ingame so what was the point? Now I only add something in there if its a joke/comedy character.
Improve how? By putting limits and restrictions on players? That isn't necessarily an improvement.
Aren't there already mechanisms in place for reporting player conduct/activity? Can't those same mechanisms be used to report the inappropriate material in character bios?
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Moderation Problems/Issues? Please contact the Community Manager
Terms of Service / Community Rules and Policies / FCT
Facebook / Twitter / Twitch
I don't normally get involved in these "discussions" but I feel this needs to be said:
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither, and lose both." --Benjamin Franklin
*shrugs* just my two cents or EC.
Thank you, I love making long bios too, adds to the character and story and etc, the longer the better!
Star Trek Online Volunteer Community Moderator
"bIghojchugh DaneH, Dumev pagh. bIghojqangbe'chugh, DuQaHlaH pagh."
"Learn lots. Don't judge. Laugh for no reason. Be nice. Seek happiness." ~Day[9]
"Your fun isn't wrong." ~LaughingTrendy
Find me on Twitterverse - @jodarkrider
As far as I know, the Community Moderators are volunteers and not Cryptic/PWE employees - they do not make decisions on game content nor have any influence regarding changes to game systems (though at times I wish they did! I agree with Askray and Jodarkrider on quite a few issues, particularly regarding last year's tailor nerfs, etc!), so their posts should not be interpreted as any kind of decision on the topic under discussion by either company.
Similarly, without wishing to speak for her, its seems self-evident that she was talking in her personal capacity as a player, sharing her view on the subjects being discussed - all of which are very much on-topic. I saw no indication that she was acting as a moderator and intended for that to be the final word on either matter and that all further discussion should cease (both from the tone/content, and the fact that such posts are usually highlighted in green text).
Returning back to topic after the above unfortunate derail, I do agree that encouraging brevity would probably help incentivise quality over quantity in bios. In addition, despite having no other ingame issues, I always seem to experience constant problems when trying to load people's bio pages (only part of the char information/bio shows, and it is sometimes incorrect), so anything that lightens the server load is welcome.
On balance though I personally don't think the length should be shortened - but I doubt its worth lengthening them either - nature abhors a vacuum and people would just be tempted to fill it with waffle.
Funny, my friend lived in Germany for awhile years ago and we play Battletech. He'd always mention how the German players didn't consider anything beyond Level 1 tech to be 'true' Battletech gaming. And with all the crazy tech they've added to that game in the last rulebook iteration, I can start to see their point of view!
Some of my toons have bios. Mostly 4-5 sentences and humorous, but get the backstory across. I don't expect anyone to see them. Hell, for all I know, Cryptic did a SNAFU and lost all that data again like they did a few years ago! It's been at least a year since I bothered to look there myself.
The same rules of decency which applies to the chat also apply to bios. If you see something violating these report that. If you fear to read something which hurt your virgin eyes you are wrong in an MMO to begin with; an hour in ESD chat at prime time should prove that. Also: if you don't like long bios *drum roll* do not read them.
But yeah, better lets waste Cryptics already far to short amount of dev time to redo something you do not care to begin with just to TRIBBLE off those that do.
Also this thread got derailed soo bad... It hurts my eyes that were not keeping to the TOS, as some say...
Yes there's a limit... How many characters it is? Only a cryptic developer can answer that for you OP!
I still don't think my ability to use the chat should be cut to avoid long rants to weed out those who put stupid things into it. Which are quite a few. Yes, I DO think many of the things done in game by players are inappropriate in the spirit of oversexualization. I haven't read enough bios of others to really comment on the frequency of content as described by some here, I never encountered any, apart from obvious badly written Mary Sues, which are stupid but really nothing to write home about.
And the idea to not only limit because of (presumedly) amoral issues but also because of some quality checks (like the Mary Sue "youngest ever to complete and everybody loves her") is really making me hope for somebody trying out Poe's Law here. If I were to apply standards like this to the world, so many stuff in TV, movies, gaming, books wouldn't exist, and I haven't even touched the music these days.
You are talking about your set of ethics though, and ways to handle it so it becomes enforced in places. Which is the very definition of a part of politics. The rule certainly applies to discussing real world politics not pertaining to the game. And a quote by a politician is not automatically politics, especially if he's as dead as said politician happens to be.
Even if it is a fake video game world, it pertains to the real world out there. Otherwise the discussion wouldn't have started in the first place.
Or you could just fill it up and do a character count. Either way, it's 2000 characters or 1000 lines, whichever comes first.
The limit is currently above 140 characters, it is 2000 characters or 1000 lines, whichever comes first.
I've run up against the limit several times. Every time the character count was 2000 characters or 1000 lines, whichever came first.