I always think the devs need to pick a non-alpha, non-beta, post release guide.

I'll state for the record that I should *NOT* be a guide. Even though I fall into softy's little requirements.

I have the teensiest bit of power with the /guild invite command, and MechaTouriaus ends up being LT. I mean, you think 1000 TyCorps in one sector was rough?
Imagine 'ol Leebs with devwarp capability, /oper kill capability, /spawn <ship> or /spawn <item> capability.
I'd be fired in 30 minutes.

But, some players are definitely annoying. I think it's an emotional maturity thing, to be honest. Some 14-year-olds are mild-mannered and well behaved, yet fun to play with. Some 24-year-olds are whiny preening backrolling dorks. Just goes to show you can't please everyone all of the time, and that's why they invented the submachine gun. *hic*

With that humble attitude...I nominate LeberMac for the next guide!

VOTE LEBER 06!

Now where's Jandis, to help you out?

I never said being a guide was easy Miharu, I just said they should get more and made the point that there is no reason money should be an issue as just about every one here my self included would guide for free to help the game become better. And yes I do agree a post alpha beta guide would be nice just to add some balence to the guides, how ever I would just be happy with more guides reguardless of who they are or how long they have been here.

Every game that has a "guide" type system, has a fully salaried customer support team that monitors their guides. Most games have entire "Live" teams, much larger than our whole company, who do little but in-game events and customer support oversight.

The problem isn't finding volunteers who will do guide-type activities, the problem is oversight over the people you empower.. which is exactly the situation you claimed was at issue during the Arolte incident. If I pick a whole bunch of new Guides, and you don't like the decisions they make, who are you going to complain to? I barely have time to develop this game and try and get our company to a profitable place, let alone handle large-scale oversight on a zillion customer-service types.

Yes, just finding a few non-melodramatic types who are capable of keeping their egos in check and taking a lot of abuse for what amounts to a thankless job.. is a difficult thing. It's kind of like the irony of politics: the people who want power are generally the ones who shouldn't have it. So instead of giving a few people a bunch of power, let's give everyone a little power, and let them sort it out themselves.

But, for the record, the idea that my just picking a bunch more guides is really going to solve anything.. is extremely naive.

Democracy has a place. Democracy is an increadibly powerfull tool for civilization. With democracracy we can finnally make this a civilized game. We can vote out the griefers, pirates, warmongers, and spammers. Finnally, we will all be able to trade in peace and tranquility.....

shoot me now.

Inc, you mean I'm supposed to be salaried??

I'll file a claim of all the back pay you owe me :P

TRS: It's possible that a system could be subverted to those ends. We'll see. Since I didn't ever intend this game to be "safe", I'm not a proponent of that happening.

Obisidian: Actually it means that *I'm* supposed to be salaried ;).

Carebears. Yuck. Don't give in to peer pressure, Incarnate. :-)

Make Roguelazer a guide.

I vote for genka.

ive got a much better idea.

we should set up a 'watching guild'. they can develop programs that monitor messages that players send to each other. then 'key words' can be flagged as suspicious, and a database of potential suspects can be gathered.

from this surveillance and other data we can generate 'no fly' lists, which means that certain people cannot cross through certain wormholes - they have to fly to their destination without warping.

now, on top of that, we could have secret prisons into which we put enemy combatanats. this will obviate the need for democratic things like vote mute. democracy is nice but it is kind of inefficient.

and we cannot afford to be inefficient when battling against the annoyerists who would destroy our game and take away our freedom.

after all, remember this.

Arolte gassed his own people.

i will not stand idly by while dunderheaded doo gooders in their ignorance of the real and grave threat facing our game call for appeasement, peace, 'redemption', and all their other liberal claptrap. that is how hitler came to power - appeasement.

we should have a 12 level tiered system of hierarchy, where each person is 'vetted' according to their progression. in addition to light weapons, heavy, mining, etc, there will be 'loyalty', 'fealty', and '100% vendettaism'.

every time you 'turn in' someone for breaking the rules, you will get increases in these new level areas. if you grief annoyerists, you get an increase in loyalty. if you write pro-vendetta news articles and post them to various message boards you get an increase in vendettaism.

there will be 'special missions' which will test your loyalty; for example a guide can tell you that you need to monitor you guildmates for potential annoyerist activity and report back to the guide. whether or not your guildmates are guilty is not the point; the point is to test how far you are willing to go to prove your dedication to the perserverence of the game.

now some will say that the higher you rise in rank, the more likely you are to be able to break the rules and get away with it. what a ridiculous argument! only the best sort of people will rise through such a system, and therefore by definition will be less likely to want to break rules. rather, the higher you get, the more access you should have to peoples personal information. only the best people should be given the best jobs. is not that reasonable?

also a 'counter annoyerist' guild can be created; its mission will be to grief annoyerists until they cannot play anymore. it will utilize both in game and out of game tactics, such as ping flooding and rootkits.

this is the best way to preserve the fun of the game, for the ordinary player, so that they can live a decent game playing life without worrying about some annoyerist doing some ungodly act like blastering innocent players without warning.

thank you and goodnight. and if you disagree with me, you hate america.

Ok, the irony has become too thick, and we've wandered fairly far afield. I'm gonna lock this thread, if people have more comments or ideas we can start another, more specifically designed thread (ie, What Kind of Adminstrative Interfaces We Need, or whatever).