Kami linked me to this thread a couple days ago, but I haven't had a chance to reply until now because of family plans for the holidays.
I do see that many of you have valid concerns so I'll try to address them all. It's also rather late right now, so I'll just number each point I go through instead of having to transition between awkward paragraphs (because I really suck at doing that when it's really late XD). Hopefully, I can help some of you decide whether or not you'd like to give Caphori a try.
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1) When taking a look at the rules and regulations for the server, I know that just reading them can be a daunting task. However, the rules we have for Caphori aren't just a list of things we slapped together in a single day. I'd be willing to say that a good 80-85% of them were added one-by-one over the course of the past year and most of them were listed in instances where a single player decides to do something that there is no real rule for and wouldn't necessarily cause problems when done by one person alone, but does cause an issue when a horde of players sees that ONE player doing it and decide they all want to do it as well.
For example, the item and ore-whoring rules came about because far too many characters would just pick up any and every item and piece of ore they came across underground while spelunking, even when they did not really need it. Most would claim that they planned to "give the items away" through quests or things of the link, but more often than not that just didn't happen and new players who joined and would rather find the items on their own by going underground suddenly had no reason to actually play the game while on the server.
Many of the rules are common sense for people who have been roleplaying for a long time already: No god-moding, no meta-gaming, power-gaming, etc.
Many of the rules are there to help protect new members/characters: No random hellevators (new players without hooks can drop into them and die a terrible death), no killing Wall of Flesh (hardmode can make things WAY to difficult for new characters), no item/ore-whoring, etc.
Many of the rules are there because of griefers/trolls: No giving out the password, no explosives, etc.
And some of them, like no ERP and no racial slurs, are just common sense rules all around.
Even so, please understand that not all rules on that list are absolutely 100% set in stone, such as the building limit rules or limits on number of houses (I'll delve into those further in a moment). Some of those rules can be bent a little, so long as the person wanting to bend them tells a mod why and how and gets approval.
We didn't make the rules to lock players in a vault away from all the fun, but I can assure you that all of them are there for specific reasons and I am fully capable of explain why every single one was created in the first place. I'm sure any of the mods can, in fact.
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2) Building limits are also there for a reason, but not a completely rigid rule. Still, there are several reasons why we have them.
Firstly, on previous maps where we did not have limits, we often had issues with players joining and building exorbitantly large structures on the surface that typically took up a great deal of surface space, had very little purpose IC or OOC, and only houses one or two characters. While I'm sure there are tons of people who do this because they simple love building, and many of these structures were beautiful, there are new players joining the server every week and a lot of these players like building their homes on the surface.
If the surface is taken up by large structures that are taking up space and serving no actual purpose but to be gaudy and large, then those people who may actually only want to build a small home in which to live somewhere and don't it beside a giant castle for a person whose character isn't even a nobleman/woman are forced to built underground where there would normally be more than enough space for them above.
Secondly, there are many players that do join the server and log on only long enough to build a single house before leaving and never coming back. Having a server full of abandoned houses taking up space on the surface is also frustrating, especially if that abandoned house also happens to be a huge mansion that was built for a random alchemist no one knows.
We set a building limit to ensure that everyone who wants to build a house on the surface has a chance to do so. If someone wants to build something larger, however, they usually only need to ask to be approved. Unless it's an eyesore of a shack that is square in the middle of an area a group of players are trying to build up to look a certain way IC, we will usually say yes.
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3) We set a limit on the number of houses because we HAVE had instances were a single player would make about five houses, each one fairly large, across the surface when they didn't really need them. However, I think this rule is also one taken on a case-by-case basis.
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4) We don't randomly ban people for no reason. The only instances were people receive instant perma-bans are when they have done something to grief the server (hacking in bombs, dropping lava across the server, etc) or start trolling players for no reason.
Otherwise, people who are perma-banned are generally warned at least several times about their behavior and go through a series of three strikes (unless they decide to do something drastic) before they actually receive permanent bans. However, any step of the ban process CAN be undone, including the permanent ban itself (there HAVE been cases where players have appealed and been unbanned and given a second chance).
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5) Banning players just because they don't write/roleplay the same way as other players is NOT acceptable.
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6) RPRating was not created as a way to force players to roleplay like everyone else. It was created as a way to provide in-game incentive for people to actually RP MORE rather than focusing all their attention on just playing Terraria while on the server.
We get a lot of players who join the server with only a little roleplay experience but a lot of Terraria-playing experience. Players like this tend to want to learn how to roleplay better, but get caught up in wanting to just get better gear and ignore what's going on IC. These players then become super-powerful in the game itself and either get bored and decide to leave the server or are under the impression that in-game power is equivalent to IC power, which is definitely untrue and causes loads of problems IC.
We've also had many problems in the past where the server has been inundated with scores and scores of people playing over-powered characters, which is an absolute mess during IC altercations because no one wants to admit the other is more powerful than them because, in their own minds, they're ALL top dog.
We're hesitant to just kick these people out because: a) some of the new players that are Terraria-players but still inexperienced roleplayers could easily get better with a little encouragement, coaching, and viable incentives in a game they already like playing and; b) many of the players that may be over-powered aren't necessarily bad roleplayers and some just need a push in the right direction to understand that you don't have to have a powerful character to have a GREAT character.
RPRating is not there to tell you HOW to roleplay. In fact, people are free to ignore it entirely if they want.
But, while we do want to have better roleplayers, we don't want to be a community that kicks people out just because they're not so great at it instead. We want to give those players a chance and HELP them get better because ALL of use were newbs at one point or another.
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7) This is not "Kami's server" or "Kami's rules". Loading all of the things that one might find wrong with the process we use onto her shoulders alone is ridiculously unfair.
Yes, Kami is an admin.
But so am I, and about five other people, and she's not the only one who makes the rules.
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Yes, there are events. However, the server's lore and map has just been reset so we're just beginning to start planning new ones. There are definitely more in the future.
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That's all I was able to go through so far. If you have any questions about anything so far, feel free to ask them and Kami and I will answer as best we can.
Thanks!
~Velspera
Author
Topic: A Terraria Server in Need of RolePlayers (Read 5962 times)