A follow up on sircamps,

Just because the filter is there it doesn't mean people should swear intentionaly, I have encountered n00b conversations like this; (the char n00b, this ain't you)

n00b: *** **** ****
SL: Watch your langauge!
n00b: You don't like it use the filter!
SL: I am.
n00b: Then don't complain.
SL: The filter isn't perfect.
<time passes>
n00b: WHY THE *** *** **** DID YOU KILL ME?!?!?!?

Fun fun, I think repeated swearing should be warned by guides, then punished if it continues, a couple swears here and there are fine, but if it is coming up reapetedly it is unacceptable, also if they say use the filter it is unacceptable.

Also people just say "**.*** YOU!!" I understand if your messege is this;
Thats di****able!
And you add a space so it's;
Thats Dispi cable!
Thats fine because the filter isn't perfect and the word isn't bad (the entire word, not the **** part.)

<important ideas>
This is exactly why we need guides to patrol the chat area, the filter isn't perfect, if someone changes text so it goes through, they should be warned, if they swear repeatedly, they should be warned, if they make sexual remarks (ex khral sometimes calls phoenix penix) they should be muted then warned, if they continually attack people verbally in main chat they should be warned, if they spam, they should be muted then warned (so they can actually see what the guide says, this would be wipped away by spam the other way around), i could go on forever.
<end of important ideas>

Also exploiting is simpley takeing advantage of a part of the game that gives a person an unfair advantage, I think it should be this, invulnerability time for out of station is 3 seconds, time until you can dock is 9 seconds, if at anytime you are shooting in the 3 secondsyou arn't invulnerable.

<important idea>
Make it so each guide is assigned one (random) number per day, then if you say /message "guide42" it will go through, but the current way it is you have to talk to guides through main chat, not very private, if i'm being told not to do something and i'm not sure i'd like to ask what i was doing in private, not to the world.
<end of important idea>

I like guides, i'd give ever single guide a hug if I could, but there identites are secret, which is good so one can't say "YOU BANNED ME SO I KILL YOU!"

I think most grammatical errors are gone, big posts are tough reading when there grammar sucks.

Ive been back online for two days now, and already, like 4 guides have "Talked" to me in thier special white text and I haven't even cursed or anything, only a little exploits but that is normal. Couldn't guides be more productive busting down on people who curse and the like? Also, how many guides ARE there??? Guide89??? There aren't even 89 regular players!!!

Honestly,
Pene

1) When a guide speaks, I think the system assigns them a random number.

2) Dumb as it may sound, the objective the devs have in mind is an exploit-free game. "just a little exploit" is still an exploit.

I always found it humorous how some people yell "LANGUAGE" when another person curses. Why not just use the filter? And why do the guides have to step in also? I can understand that some losers try to bypass the filter, but if the filter is there in the first place why don't some people use it if they're offended by cursing? Kind of defeats the purpose, ya know?

I also think Guides should be out in the open. Why do they work behind curtains? If they're afraid of being verbally harassed or assaulted, they always have the power to mute or kick the person off. So that can't be it. Or do they just want to give the illusion that everyone is being watched even though they aren't always behind the two-way mirror? That'll be one quick way of creating paranoia between players. Hehe. And is there ever going to be a way to get in touch with a Guide besides yelling for one in main chat and hoping that they're listening? A summon command for Guides would be nice, for example.

And lastly, what did they ask from you, grant.bender? People exploit all the time. That couldn't have been it.

If you get contacted by a guide just do the simple thing and listen. If you don't listen they are obivously going to talk to you more.

If a guide was lets say spamming you with messages or whatever. Then I would complain, otherwise I wouldn't worry about it that much.

i agree with Arolte. the filter was designed so you didnt have to see the bad language. if the "Guides" are getting on to you about your language then the DEVS NEED to get RID of the FILTER, cause it apparently isnt doing the job that it was intended for.

Maybe, just maybe people should stop cursing so much? Or I could just have this all wrong.

Well some people like to say the words pass the filter like: A S D F so that the filter doens't notice it and see that I can understand where the guides would message the person to stop.

Hmmm.... this amazes me.... Why did they message PP yesturday?!?! For a start... i didn't get messaged, and i do far more exploiting... Also, Khral was totally insulting Phoenix and myself using explicit sexual references and nothing was said to him!!! Something is a bit out of balance here.....

Yes something majorly is out of balance...it doesn't make sence unless pp isn't telling us something. The only thing I remember pp doing which annoyed me...is she was impresonating the bank and [NK]Mutant. Otherwise than that it doesn't make sence...

Icarus: Exploited more than her
Khral: Went way overboard on insulting phoenix and icarus
As for cursing unless pp was swearing majoly and endlessly pass the filter that isn't an option eather so I totally agree with Icarus on this one. Unless like I said...pp isn't telling us something.

Maybe one has to summon a guide if help is needed. I doubt there are enough guides around just yet to have one browsing at all times.

its all the stuff that doesnt really matter, you get the "Guide" yelling at you for and the stuff that does matter apparently doesnt.
thats a bass ackwards philosophy.
and yes ctishman you have it all wrong :)
cause if no one cursed, then why have a filter?
the filter is there for a reason, USE IT!

So PP, what SPECIFICALLY did the Guide ask you not to do? Your post was pretty vague, and all the others seem to be speculation.

...and if people didn't filter-dodge we wouldn't have this problem in the first place. :P

1. People shouldn't be cursing in the first place, whether there's a filter or not. Say someone just got the game, doesn't know about the filter, logs on, sees a phrase that goes something along the lines of "f888 you f888er a88hole s888 your b8888 mom." How inclined would the person be to continue playing?

2. Yes, grant-bender, you're either not being truthful or holding back some piece of evidence that might incriminate yourself. Come clean. "like 4 guides." How many? Is it 4? or 3? "like 4" means nothing.

euhm SL it's banned

but I am all fore what you are saying

but that doesn't mean you have to kill the little noobs for it

cheers

Thanks renegade, i'll comb through it with a grammar brush again.
<edit>
Um considering that was one of my longest posts, I think we BADLY need to make the text feild dimensions (both of them) bigger by 2 inches, at least.

I actually had an idea (gasp!) for the filter a while ago. Maybe it could check words against a dictionary of accepted words, and those would go through. That way words like "spices" would be fine. That would probably require a lot of processor power, though... Maybe there could be two filter settings, with one of them being what I just said...

Um, how about this, the filter combs for bad words, then most common words used in game with the word in it, then some common misspellings for the word, so it would search like this;

****
****
---spices
---spice
---dispicable
****

Yah, won't be too processer intensive because it is looking for the word, then words that have that word in it.

Below is a post from Incarnate I culled from the Archive Forum (2/24/03) since we can't ::bump:: posts anymore. I looked for one about exploiting too, but I can't really recall any dev posts about that.

INCARNATE:
"We put in a filter mostly because people wanted it. Again, figuring out how to implement this stuff is kind of a work in progress, not unlike the Guides and everything else. Unfortunately, because of the nature of our gameplay, we potentially attract two very different types of gamers. On the one hand, there are MMO players who are used to highly social games where behaviour is usually a little more polite. On the other hand, there are FPS players used to the environments common in CS/Quake/Unreal games, which usually involve a lot of foul-mouthed, egotistical razzing. Mostly good natured razzing, but people who aren't used to that kind of behaviour sometimes don't know how to deal with it, and end up not enjoying the game very much. We don't want to censor anything, but we do want people to have a good time playing the game.

So basically, we installed the filter for those who want it, and because it's standard practice on MMOs. Those who don't want it can disable it (under Graphics Options, right now).

Guide use is more related to people being really personally abusive, which isn't necessarily related to their language at all. At present, I can see us progessing towards a point where Guides aren't likely to interevene unless someone requests it, so if people want to rip on each other, they can do so.

Ignore lists also don't persist at present (if you /ignore someone, it will be reset when you leave the game), which should probably be changed.

Defining our policies on all of this is kind of a nebulous process, figuring it out as we go along. All of the input from you guys is well received."