CDLS Q&A

[Rmak]

Plenty of people seem to have the same misunderstanding and linking back to a vague statement is a simple cop out.

[Father Brian]

New players are going to get a warning, right? Nobody is going to get their accounts locked without warning?

In all the years of Cantr operating, how many times has this even happened for it to be a concern. None.

The only time an account gets locked is if it is deemed necessary to prevent an issue from escalating or the player gives reason for it to happen. It is never done without reason.

Hello, I doubt this is true. When I had first started playing, I dynamically renamed one of my characters with some unicode characters (a simple visual reminder of a strong character trait she has, which I'd kept forgetting). An admin called Pilot contact me and told me to change it as it could affect other players' playing experience. I asked him how that could be (and changed the name to regular characters) - the characters could only load for me, as I never used them ingame - and was immediately locked, with the message that in order to be unlocked, I'd need to change the characters' name. For those keeping score at home, that was an impossible request (you cannot interact with ANYthing except admin PMs when your account is locked), and I'd already changed the name in any case.

This was I think a month after I'd started playing, maybe slightly more, and I'd had no interaction with any member of staff before that. And if it happened to me on such a specific incident, I'd guess this sort of hair-trigger lock has happened to others from other members of staff on more common incidents.


(One more thing I don't think relating this is a violation of forum rules, as the forum says the admin who contacted me was a member of ProgD, and the issue was one of a coding nature, not a gameplay violation )
EDIT: actually now the forum says he's GAB, though I'm not sure what that is. Back then when I looked it up he was listed as ProgD, though)

[Marian]

Hello, I doubt this is true. When I had first started playing, I dynamically renamed one of my characters with some unicode characters (a simple visual reminder of a strong character trait she has, which I'd kept forgetting). An admin called Pilot contact me and told me to change it as it could affect other players' playing experience. I asked him how that could be (and changed the name to regular characters) - the characters could only load for me, as I never used them ingame - and was immediately locked, with the message that in order to be unlocked, I'd need to change the characters' name. For those keeping score at home, that was an impossible request (you cannot interact with ANYthing except admin PMs when your account is locked), and I'd already changed the name in any case.

This was I think a month after I'd started playing, maybe slightly more, and I'd had no interaction with any member of staff before that. And if it happened to me on such a specific incident, I'd guess this sort of hair-trigger lock has happened to others from other members of staff on more common incidents.


(One more thing I don't think relating this is a violation of forum rules, as the forum says the admin who contacted me was a member of ProgD, and the issue was one of a coding nature, not a gameplay violation)

Wow.

The really astounding thing here, is that you even continued to play. I wonder how many new players get hit with things like this and just say screw it and move on. It's a big internet, after all, and a player just starting out wouldn't really have had a chance to form that many relationships IG or be addicted yet.

[Cdls]

Plenty of people seem to have the same misunderstanding and linking back to a vague statement is a simple cop out.

Actually, Jos is the owner of Cantr, so if that is his stance, then there is no real higher authority on the matter. It isn't a "simple cop out", it is the answer from the one high up. But anyways, it links back to why this topic exists, to try and clear up these misunderstandings. If you have a question that hasn't been covered, or would like something clarified, please present it.


Father Brian, it sounds like it had something to do with the Programming Dept then. If they felt the need to lock your account for such a reason, it is outside the purview of the Players Department and should be taken up with them. This topic is specific to the Players Department.

[ObsessedWithCats]

New players are going to get a warning, right?

As a new player I was given a one-chance warning, not just locked out. I wont go into further detail but honestly I was 95% of the way to leaving anyway after the way that was handled.

Took me a very long time to work up the nerve to contact PD about anything after that but Cdls has been cool ^_^ I think possibly things have changed or PD was on high alert for other reasons at the time and didn't have much patience left for me.

[Crownless]

I emailed GAB as EchoMan suggested and apart from a response three weeks ago (from EchoMan) confirming they got my email I haven't heard back from them yet. Any other ideas? I still don't know what the rules are regarding OOC conversations, and I'd also like confirmation on a few other things (what to do when two characters are unavoidably in the same town, etc.)

[Edited to clarify.]

[Cdls]

If you have questions about a specific case you are involved in, please feel free to PM me the details. Such things cannot be posted on the forum.

Regarding having two or more characters in a town, look over my response here: http://forum.cantr.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=27315#p558757

If that doesn't cover your question then please feel free to provide an example (not using any real in game information) to illustrate what you need clarifying. If you cannot do that without providing in game information, then PM me instead so we can discuss it.

Regarding OOC communications, the general rule of thumb is that any OOC communication that is heard by another player that they consider to be disruptive will be investigated as such. That is why it is suggested that any public OOC be done only for clarifying game mechanics (if for some reason you cannot get an answer from the forum or someone on the Cantr staff).

For example:
OOC: How do I pull X into Y? <-- is not considered disruptive and will not be cause for concern.

but...

OOC: HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!
OOC: Gotta go eat, brb

are all examples that will be considered disruptions IF a player reports them.

and..

OOC: Everyone try and be on at 4pm so we can do X or Y to Z.

is something that will be considered using OOC to plan something in game and is not allowed at all. Things like that should be worked out somehow within the game world.

Regarding communications with GAB, you will need to try and contact them again as I am not in that department. You can send a message to all of them (by filtering out by department) so that you will have a better chance of one of them reading it.

[Marian]

Just a quick question. If someone's character is a victim of a CR or consent breach, and they don't realize it right away, what's the timeframe they'd have to report it in? Is there a point when they just shouldn't bother?

[Cdls]

It should always be reported, at the very least so that there can be a documentation of the occurrence, even if it is too late to investigate.

[Millhouse]

Do players have a choice which admin handles their case if they happen to break a rule? Or at least request someone different?

[Kyriel]

I would still like clarification on the rules regarding characters winding up near one another, "violent" or otherwise. Specifically, is a character is a "pirate", and their captain sails them into a port where they already have another character, without their consent or possibly even knowledge, will they expect to be locked without warning? Or do they have to alert their captain ahead of time "ooh I have a bad feeling about this town, let's not go there"?

[sanchez]

I would still like clarification on the rules regarding characters winding up near one another, "violent" or otherwise. Specifically, is a character is a "pirate", and their captain sails them into a port where they already have another character, without their consent or possibly even knowledge, will they expect to be locked without warning? Or do they have to alert their captain ahead of time "ooh I have a bad feeling about this town, let's not go there"?

There are situations in the game where no kind of RP can mitigate the advantages for your chars, so these are unfair and need to be avoided. This is especially true with violent chars, where any advantages matter most. Choosing to have one char sleep, go indoors, or even leave town for a bit, doesn’t always address the problem, as you still have information about people, resources, habits, etc. in the town. And you are controlling which of your chars is awake when, and with whom they interact in a way another player could not. Even if you as a player try not to take advantage of this, it’s very difficult to avoid and even more so for PD to sort out, compared to the actions of less scrupulous players in the same circumstances.

Contact PD for advice if you think you will encounter such a situation, but probably you should avoid participating in violence with either char.

[Kyriel]

Sanchez, that was not my question. I would appreciate an answer from someone who is actually on PD, thank you.

[Rmak]

There is a lot if people listed on the staff pages , are they all active ? Is there anything exciting coming up development wise ?

what does pr dept do ?


Ah is this only about pd. Sorry

[sanchez]

I would still like clarification on the rules regarding characters winding up near one another, "violent" or otherwise. Specifically, is a character is a "pirate", and their captain sails them into a port where they already have another character, without their consent or possibly even knowledge, will they expect to be locked without warning? Or do they have to alert their captain ahead of time "ooh I have a bad feeling about this town, let's not go there"?

There are situations in the game where no kind of RP can mitigate the advantages for your chars, so these are unfair and need to be avoided. This is especially true with violent chars, where any advantages matter most. Choosing to have one char sleep, go indoors, or even leave town for a bit, doesn’t always address the problem, as you still have information about people, resources, habits, etc. in the town. And you are controlling which of your chars is awake when, and with whom they interact in a way another player could not. Even if you as a player try not to take advantage of this, it’s very difficult to avoid and even more so for PD to sort out, compared to the actions of less scrupulous players in the same circumstances.

Contact PD for advice if you think you will encounter such a situation, but probably you should avoid participating in violence with either char.

Sanchez, that was not my question. I would appreciate an answer from someone who is actually on PD, thank you.

I did spend several years active in PD, and even trained some current members. When you make specific demands towards staff, it starts to look less like you want to find answers, which apply to all of us, than to create discord.

Accounts are never locked for no reason, which I think is obvious, and someone will always communicate with you. So if your question is to be considered sincere (or if other players bother to read this), then it’s essentially asking for the same thing that’s been stated over and over again will not happen, which is a list of rules and formulaic responses for hypothetical in-game sets of circumstances.

The reason CR in Cantr is different from other games is immersion; each set of circumstances is unique, because all of our chars and locations and stories are unique. But what’s more relevant to your question is that even with some superficially similar circumstances such as bringing one char to a town where you have another, what matters for fairness in the game is a lot more complex. It depends not only on your chars, but on you as a player. If you have a history of using multiple chars to influence the same events, or if PD asks you to stop certain activities and you don’t, or if you try to lie to PD about things they can plainly see, then your case might have a very different outcome from another player. Abusing staff or publicly harrassing them doesn’t help either.

PD isn’t there to punish you for not understanding how what you might be doing is unfair, but they still have an obligation to the game to make sure it doesn’t continue, and that might involve locks or other restrictions until you do understand and are able to cooperate.

Aside from very obvious cases like attacking with two chars, which will almost always generate an account lock, you always have to look at a larger picture. What are you doing with your other chars, what influence do they have, how might they be affected, etc. If your ‘pirate’ kidnaps someone off a lonely beach, it might be a lame and uninteresting way to play, but it’s unlikely to have wide-reaching effects compared to kidnapping an influential char in a larger city. Either way however, you should expect a query from PD if you play a second char with ties to the same location.