Hooliganism

Bigpoint,

Back in 6 May, 2012 I wrote in the Uridium Wars forums an article that began...

Oh, Bigpoint. What hath thou wrought on your children by design or neglect?
(go look it up)

My words went ignored and unanswered and a few months later that was the end of that. So I'm hoping that this time you heed these words and think on what I'm about to say.

Your games are set up with your best intentions as a place of enjoyment for your customers and as your source of income. But how your product is being used is and will greatly determine your income and your customer retention levels.

You have created the games and then with the exception of chat you have a complete hands-off approach to how the product is used or abused as long as no rules or hacking are violated. Let me explain why that approach is wrong by a few examples.

If your game were a skating rink would you charge admission at the door and then let anyone do as they pleased? No. You have rules on which direction to skate, where to skate, how fast and when is too fast. But more importantly you have personnel there in cases of violations which might affect the safety and enjoyment of your other customers, and therefore affect your profit margin. A band of misbehaving teens running wild on a regular basis can quickly run your customers off.

If your game were a local area convenience store and gas station would you be concerned if your customers were attacked and mugged on a regular basis everytime they attempt to come to your store to purchase your products? No. You would hire security or call out the police against the thugs and hoodlums. Because no matter how good or cheap your product is, if your customer base does not enjoy visiting your store - you're out of business.

When one person’s enjoyment becomes a danger to your customer base something must be done to protect your own self interest. When the rules you have set down for the enjoyment of all are being abused by a few to the point your remaining customers are no longer enjoying themselves something must be done to protect your own income.

Hooliganism defined as “rowdy, violent, or destructive behavior”. I’m well aware that Dark Orbit is a player verses player game but it is not a 100% PvP game or there would be no NPCs or quests. As part of the game you start out as nothing and work your way up. Your ability to move up determines whether you continue or surrender and quit the game. Regardless if you are level 2, 12 or 22 at the point you do not feel you can go any further because of the obstacles before you, you quit. End of story. End of customer.

And that brings to the situation where we are right now. The hooligans have taken over the game and the regular players are running for the door. Your company representative is standing at the door saying, “Have a nice day, come back soon“.

So what’s the solution? Eliminate multi-company clans. Eliminate the option. Eliminate the ability for someone from EIC to outfit with MMO or VRU and vice-versa. You cannot fight the enemy out there if you are being attacked by the chaos players and hooligans working with them within your own company.

Next, appoint map police that can step in and suspend players that pose a danger to the enjoyment of the majority of your customer base. This means having someone that can give an especially aggressive or nuisance player an hour or two suspension off the game just so the other players can enjoy themselves. Predators are expected in a player verses player environment. But hooligans need to be shown the door.

We also have a few persons who although have not violated the direct rules of the game have made it abundantly clear to one and all by their actions in the game and/or words in chat that they are mentally unstable. For the betterment of the customer base as a whole these persons need to be suspended when their behavior becomes too disruptive.

Now, I’ve said my piece. In May of 2012, I said my piece and I watched the result of no response. Let’s hope there’s a response here or this Christmas could be the last for Dark Orbit. If you want to save the game, save your customer base and save your profit margin you must act now.

GRUMPY
USA East 1 server

 

i agree with this.

 

i agree with the multi clan thing... it should perpetuate a huge penalty on that clan, like -25% of hit points and damage, etc

 

I agree with Grumpy, certain players and certain clans exist just to bully and disrupt the game. You can't play at all when these guys are out there. And they go after the noobs and keep hammering them and noobs are the future of the game. No noobs, no money, no game.

 

Look at what's happening right now, not just in chat but in the game itself. The hooligans are running the game and running the customers off.

 

Have to admit that i didn't read all of it but did get gist of it

First of all you should expect some of those hooligans/bullies/mentally unstable that have ruined game to troll this thread ...their reaction to it will be usual one "it is PvP game" or something to that effect ..

Multi Company clans are something that Big Point have encouraged by doing nothing to stop it ...in my eyes it is nothing but form of cheating.

All of their events have been ruined by multi company clans ,from seasonal events to PvP to TDM to normal gameplay

If there ever was an example of Company that runs its product (in this case game) like Wall Street is run that would be Big Point since it was taken over by Vulture Capitalists,they do not care for their customer base ,simple as that as they have hooked few big fish that are spending thousands to be virtual "Kings of the Hill"

It was clear to all in what contempt this company holds its player base when they allowed those that have ruined their game with cheating & boting to get away without any consequences ...removing bio points and upgrades from those that cheated/boted/bullied their way to full UFE is like FBI catching people that robbed Fort Knox and taking their guns and allowing them to keep gold they stole.

Bullying is a part of Big Point Business Model , they have allowed it they encourage it they love it,if one player kills 10 others over and over and over and only one of 10 goes out and start spending to "protect" himself ...Big Points game plan has paid off

Chat is the biggest joke of them all ,i know more players that have been permanently banned for calling cheater by his name ...cheater, then i know those who cheated and were banned for it

Prepare yourself for trolls with their excuses.

 

WE LOVE YOU GRUMPY!!!
disagree with everything except for the 1-2 hour game bans though, which some people should get when their behaviour is very inappropriate.

 

Well said GRUMPY.
I have a confession...approx 2 or maybe 3 yrs ago I decided to reset my bio and needed alot of seprom. At the time my son was playing as vru `he no longer plays, the youth have no perseverance these days` I was and still am EIC. `Bring forth the brainwave` Yes I destroyed his ship over and over for seprom in the cargo to speed up the process of setting my new bio tree. Along came [PLOD] I was busted. I lost millions of exp points and went from lvl 20 to lvl 19. With hindsight I had made an error of judgement and realised I had been cheating/boosting, I took the punishment and have continued to play my game, as in life, with honesty. My point of writing this is this.. BP do have a `police force` of their own [PLOD] My question is why dont I see them out on the maps??

 

i agree +1

 

Grumpy you state a valid point here. Bullying in game has extended way beyond the boundaries of chat and many people, particularly weaker players, are getting harassed by other players both in-game and on chat. The most common reasons pathetic excuses these bullies give is "but I need the kill" or "I need to level up." I even had one person about a couple of years ago tell me his excuse for blocking peoples' cargo was that "he needed to get a quest done."

Just yesterday we had a turkish player on GB2 popping our clan members for no apparent reason in 2-7 while we were on low hp and then started bragging and ego-posting the kill logs in chat and whispering various kill logs to my clan members. To add insult to injury he made life threats to me via the whisper system. Obviously I knew that these were empty threats but there are younger players on here who would take this threat seriously.

These are the kind of players we need to curtail (get rid of) in order to allow the actual players who want to play the game to have an enjoyable experience without being harassed by muppets who get a kick out of bullying others, some even to the point where they quit the game entirely.

The map police idea is plausible but it does have a few flaws, for example, what if some guy was bullying others in game and you made him a KOS (Kill On Sight.) If the person assigned to that map didn't see the harassment that was going on beforehand, they would assume that you were to antagonist if you went for the bully. Unless given a chance to explain your actions you would be the one getting wrongly punished.

As for the multi-company clan system, I don't think multi-company clans should be 100% banned since there are players who have real life friends on here and they may have joined different companies. A clan makes it easier for them to play together and support each other in game.

Not to mentions clans make it much easier for people in any of the three companies to get involved in achieving a common goal (such as a clan of legit players flushing out a hooligan clan from the game) since some clans on the game (very few, but some) are dedicated to a certain cause. However, a lot of multi-company clans use members in all companies to gain an unfair tactical advantage on the maps.

Multi-company clans shouldn't banned, but they certainly shouldn't be trusted either and personally, if a multi-company clan sent me an alliance request I would instantly hit decline on it.

Right now, certain types of hooligan-like harassment are punished in-game via the honour loss system, if you pop an ally or steal an ally's cargo you lose honour and the honour loss doubles with each offence. Eventually the malicious players becomes an outlaw resulting in lower ore selling prices and damage reductions.

Sadly, these punishments aren't enough to dissuade some hooligans it seems, not to mention some muppets on their last day of playing may choose to cause chaos in the game, not only because they are leaving and it's their last chance to do such a thing (sort of a YOLO effect, an acronym which I despise but there's no other way to describe it) but because they know nobody can do squat to em in revenge because they won't be playing the next day, so no one can get back at em any time soon.

 

On the great scale of cost and benefit, good or bad, the question has to be asked - is the use of multi-company clans better or worse for the whole of the game? After many years and having run a good multi-company clan to help new players build up I have to say the cost (the bad) grossly outweighs the benefit. The use of multi-company clans to cause chaos hurts the game far more than helps.

 

Exactly why I don't trust multi-company clans. Most multi-company clans I've seen only accept players from all three companies with the sole purpose of gaining an unfair advantage in hunting. I believe making a multi-company clan for this purpose should be considered a form of pushing and treated as such since the only purpose the clan's multi-company affiliation is to gain an unfair advantage in PvP.

For the record I know not all multi-company clans are like this but majority of them that I've seen on GB2 are and that is what is causing me and many others to not trust multi-company clans.

 

There is a few things that should be changed in this game in my opinion for one the fact that we can even steal other peoples cargo is completely pointless ! This feature should be removed from the game as it serves no purpose at all , like who really wants to go around stealing cargo an losing honour from it ? The only people this really affects are new players who do not yet know how to turn off blue cargo , all that happens is a noob accidentally steals the cargo of an ubfe then that ubfe destroys the noob , noob then rage quits because he was popped by his own company !!

Another thing that i reckon should be removed from the game is the ability to war clans of your own company , only reason clan wars start is either insulting other clans in chat or stealing the npc of another player ! In the past when everyone was pretty much evenly matched is was not such an issue but now its possible for a clan of just 1 , 2 or 3 players to totally dominate the maps of their own company if they so wish to do so !
So many times have i seen a few ubfe create a clan just so they can go around popping everyone from their own company to boost their ship kills or to just create chaos , ubfe clans sending war to newly made noob clans because one person in the ubfe clan has an ego trip and decides to send war to the noob clan who clearly have no chance what so ever ! This causes the noob clan to disband , a few of them will change their name and carry on playing , a few will remain clanless , a few will move company and a few will quit the game completely .
This does nothing to help the progression of the game it simply hinders it by not allowing new players to create clans .
So in my opinion the clan war feature is just helping to destroy the game at the moment by causing players to quit due to bullying of ubfe clans .

 

The issue brought up by Spudnick about Uber ships warring their own was covered as a act of hooliganism that could be corrected by a 1 to 2 hour ban from the game for disrupting the flow of the game. Certain internal company clan wars do have their place and are carried out without bringing the entire company or server to a halt and running off customers. No one want to bring the game to a halt with over regulation. We're looking for moderation of the offenses that are running the players off the game.

Most of you know I'm on 12 to 16 hours a day. I have not been on USA East 1 server more than a hour total flight time in the past 2 days, just to transfer some cargo from the skylab and close out a couple of daily quests. For me the game is unplayable with the hooligans running nuts.

After getting attacked over and over I had to repair my drones. As a normal course of flight my drones last from 1 to 3 months before they need to be repaired again. Right now my drones are 9% damaged and I've not even gotten them leveled back to 6.

This ship, this account is parked. Eventually I'll get bored checking in and building millions of seprom on lasers I'll never use and just stop logging in all together.

Bigpoint keeps asking it's fallen customers why did you leave by sending out emails and trying to survey them. When the rules of fair play are tossed out the window and nothing is done to stop it people go somewhere else.

When this game had so many active players you were fighting over promerium rocks the balance between offensive abilities and defensive abilities was balanced. The best offensive ship could take out the best equipped defensive ship but only after an epic battle. That's not the case any more. And the number of customers proves it.

NO ONE comes on a game to die. They come on a game to have fun. If you invite me to play a game where I lose every time and I never stand a chance of winning, exactly where is my incentive to continue?

I'll go back to my analogy in the beginning. If this were a skating rink and it became clear that no matter how well I skated or how good my skates were or much I followed the rules, every day, every few minutes some punk was going to jump out and knock me down and cut me off and no one was going to do anything about his misbehavior. I'll either be looking for a new place to skate or I'd give up skating all together.

Bigpoint - your rink is almost empty. Ever thought about hiring floor guards?

 

I do not believe that clan wars have a place in this game anymore , if you cant steal others peoples npc , cant shoot your own company these are the main things which cause chat to erupt and insults start flying around , which then lead to clan wars which then leads to people quitting the game .
I strongly believe a lot more people would stick around if they was not getting shot down by their own company and never had to keep disbanding their clans because of company bullies .
For a game that is trying to rebuild its user base there are too many things in it that are preventing it from happening and clan wars is one of them . On my server i can name at least half a dozen clans that have been victim of clan wars and all the members have simply quit the game due to being fed up with it all , if a clan sends war to your clan there is nothing you can do other then either disband it or not log on if your clan simply is not capable of fighting the war .

1. No need for the ability to shoot players from your own company
2. No need for the ability to war clans from your own company
Both of the above hinder the progression of players whilst serving no real purpose , the game is meant to be about 3 companys fighting it out but the game now a days is far from that . Players are more happy to spend their time warring their own company and causing people to quit then actually fighting the other 2 companys .
Take the above 2 away and company chat would be a lot nicer and also we would see more newb clans being created thus more players sticking around and eventually your company growing again in members .

 

Very Interesting post.

I have to say, back in 2009 we didn´t have all the improvements that are present in the game now, but it was worse, no X1 protection, no liberator ship, no flax, no free repairs, no nothing. I remember that if I wanted to leave X1 I had to collect 500 uridium so if I got popped I could repair the ship or buy phoenix again. I remember FE ships entering X1 maps to pop as many phoenix, nostromo, liberator, piranha and big boy boy ships that were possible for them and ascend in rank. BUT it was easier to get FE, because there were no LF4, BIO, HAVOC, HERCULES, SHIP DESIGNS, and all that stuff we all know.

Back then there was hooligans too, but we all were FE, and if the hooligans tried to bully someone or some clan, they had what they diserved, and had good fights.

Hooligan have always existed, they exist here, they exist in real life and other games too. I´m not saying that I agree with your idea of getting rid of the clan war option, because then we all would be in the same company, and shooting no one because of the fear of loosing honor points.

The game right now has a bigger issue and it has a name: BALANCE

Everyone is saying that is too expensive, that you don´t get what you pay, Pecanin has made several posts himself on the hercules and such, that he spents money and the game returns nothing. THAT is the real problem, that people wants to achieve their goals, and in order to achieve it they have to spend a lot of money.


Nowdays hooligans are hooligans because of BALANCE. The game itself lost the BALANCE because of chance. I mean, how is it possible that a player pays for 50 kappa gates to be full hercules and another player pays only for 20? because of chance? that means that player1 had to pay for 30 more kappa gates because of chance? BALANCE! if you have to pay for 50 kappa gates to be full hercules ok so be it, then everyone pays for 50 kappas. That way you know that if you are in your kappa gate number 29 you only have to make 21 more and you´ll be full hercules!!(not necesarily that qty.) The same goes for the LF4, the same goes for the havoc.

BALANCE gentleman, that´s all we need.

 

In my cynical view:-

The sad fact is Do activity encourages unsociable behaviour. If it gets some short term revenue then it is OK.

We only need to look at a few of the following:-

Pushing;
there was an introduction to a 24 hr limit on multiple same account ship kills which was then extended for clan war kills. That encourage strong clan to war weak clans;
perpetuating company wars creating bad feeling within companies.

72 hr ban for botters that continued to bot after it was announced that they were going to detect and ban bots;

noting that DO had been able to detect bot a very long time before this, but did little or nothing.

Auto lockers and other battle cheats have never been truly targeted.

Bug abuse:
players that abuse bugs do not get punished these days;
when it becomes a major issue we get a role back and compensation in the form of 5% EP /Honour days;

which is nothing more that a marketing ploy to get higher activity on those days.

Credit pushing accounts:-
I've see a massive increase in credit pushing accounts, but nothing is being done about it. I guess those accounts use the AD videos to speed up transportation so give DO revenue.

Does anyone that has been around since before BIO truly expect anything better of DO?

 

no. not really . but I expect worse.. and finally grumpy I agree with most of what u said..although multi company clans I don't agree with since some people have friends in other companies and want to be in the same clan as them since they are friends .and outfit thing.same , no.. if I go to eic and I'm vru and I see a mmo player ..I'm not going to shoot him ,but I will shoot eic since we are both common enemies. u know the saying .an enemy of my enemy is my friend

 

The problem that we have right now is simple. You are in EIC and you're fighting MMO and VRU (both red dots) but you are also fighting the blue dot coming up behind you who is also in the same clan. You cannot fight the enemy out there if the enemy iis within. This is the problem of the multi-company clans. The line between friend and foe is lost.

Forcing players to create separate clans in EIC, MMO and VRU and not being able to outfit with them or between them would eliminate much of the cross-over and clarify the lines between the 3 companies.

I could start a clan named CLAN-01 in EIC. You could start another in VRU named CLAN*01. And someone else could have a clan named CLAN^01 in MMO. But the 3 clans could not join together in outfits or jump from one clan to the other in another company. Although thet may be able to coordinate via Skype or Teamspeak, we could at least be able to identify who is friend of foe and internally within the company clean house of the unwanted opposition.

 

I posted this about year ago ,then it was forwarded to DO by one of mods here (i think Harley) ,they probably read this in DO ivory tower and thought "Hmmm ...caring about players..is this guy nuts or what"

Described BP perfectly in that article back then ,now even more ...


So those that missed it last time ...enjoy reading,it is long but well worth it.




Developers: Community matters, so stop milking players for cash
by Dennis Fong on 05/15/13 08:15:00 pm

Dennis Fong is CEO of Raptr, the leading community for gamers with over 17 million members.

Over the past several years, we've seen game publishers embrace the idea of "Games as a Service," which often means a mix of always-on, microtransactions, premium currency, regular content updates, and above all, deep player-behavior metrics. But the problem with GaaS is that many publishers using this model devote far too much effort to maximizing short-term gains at the expense of building for long-term success.

Players are smart. They know when they're being nickel and dimed, and if their time and money isn’t rewarded, they won’t stick around. But here’s something less immediately apparent: What’s good for the player is often good for business, and the way we at Raptr see it, the real key to a successful game is a successful online community. Call it Community as a Service.


There's a better way

Take a look at some of today's most popular online games. Titles like League of Legends, Team Fortress 2, and even relatively cult hits like EVE Online have achieved incredible success not by squeezing money from their players, but by giving their communities the tools they need to thrive.

League of Legends, for instance, didn't become a huge success and eSports phenomenon thanks only to its free-to-play business model. Developer Riot Games funded seasonal tournaments showcasing the game's top competitors, giving users incentive to keep playing League of Legends at a competitive level. And it supported the LoL community with features like the Tribunal (a player-run disciplinary system) and spectator mode.

Those events and features may seem designed to drive player engagement and build goodwill, but they also drive the bottom line. Raptr's own case studies reveal that League of Legends is growing an average of 7.6% each month thanks in part to the game's ongoing community support, and after major eSports events new player sign-ups jump about 10%.

Team Fortress 2 is another great example of a game that treats its community right, and it's obviously paid off, as the game is still going strong five years after launch. Valve's kept the game alive and fresh with constant updates over the years, and players have even had the opportunity to make their own items and maps for the game via the popular Steam Workshop.

Looking at the Steam Workshop in particular, we've found that when players can create their own content and give back to a game they love, players will stick around longer, play more often, and remain more loyal to their favorite games. When Team Fortress 2 added support for the Steam Workshop in 2011, the game saw a a 271% increase in daily active users -- making the game's post-free-to-play numbers all the more impressive.

And then there’s EVE Online creator CCP, which found success by making community a core part of its game's design. EVE relies on its users to create their own narrative of galactic intrigue, and with amazing results -- I haven’t even played the game, yet I’ve read multiple fascinating accounts of player-driven espionage and game-world-wide wars. CCP even consults a community-elected group of players, the Council of Stellar Management, on design plans and player issues. CCP knows that its players are the lifeblood of EVE Online's success, and the studio understands that it needs to keep those players happy if it wants EVE Online to continue.

In fact, that's the single largest takeaway from all the above examples. The games I've pointed out aren't hosting live events, enabling user-generated content, or otherwise giving back to their communities as a form of charity; these services are actually core components of their success. If you're looking to build a game with a healthy, ongoing, and supportive player base, community services aren't just nice to have; they're a must have for your business.


Shifting from commodity to community

By all accounts, social interactivity is going to become even more important in this next console generation, so community-building is going to be vital if you want to build a game for long-term success.

When you have a strong and active community, your players will stay engaged longer, play your games more often, and stay more loyal to your brands. And when you give them legitimate reasons to keep playing your games, they'll be even more willing to spend money, because there’s real value in doing so. Put your players first -- a service-oriented development philosophy can't succeed unless community-building remains the most important part of that formula.

Of course, not every studio will have the resources to imitate industry giants like Riot or Valve, but that's really no excuse to ignore community-building altogether. Without nurturing the community, developers can doom themselves to mediocrity or outright failure, so they should do everything they can to support their users.

Luckily, today's players already engage with games in an ever-increasing number of ways, and studios have access to a variety of different tools to enable players to share experiences and milestones.

Developers can drive live streaming and video sharing via services like Twitch and YouTube with in-game tools and/or contests and other events, and also as a direct communication method with their communities. Raptr’s own data shows that when players have access to video content they can consume outside of a game, they're far more likely to stay engaged.

Other players, meanwhile, might want to have a better look into your design process, and we've found that developer Q&As are a great way to keep players interested and loyal to a given brand. We've hosted a number of these Q&As over at Raptr, and several developers have turned to Reddit to host their own AMA events, so it's easy for studios of any size to maintain that sort of direct dialogue with their audience.

Of course, other studios might choose to give their players mod tools for creating user-generated content, or perhaps reward their loyal players with in-game incentives. Regardless, there are countless ways to build a mutually beneficial relationship with your community, and when you get it right, everyone wins.


The age of community

We're moving into an era where the community is the most vital aspect of running an online service -- especially when it comes to games. We're already crowdsourcing funding on Kickstarter, and games are quickly becoming more social by the day -- do we need much more proof that this stuff matters?

With that in mind, game creators need to do everything they can to embrace community as a core pillar of the game-making process. Developers should think about increasing communication, encouraging user participation, and rewarding the players who support their games. Whether you build, buy, or rent your own tools, you and your studio need to think about leveraging community as a service.

In the years and months ahead, the industry needs to consider not just the games it's producing, but the people playing them. For those of you making service-based games, remember: Don't milk your players for cash today; start building a community for tomorrow.