Privacy in gaming

L. B. Heuschkel

@Pandora Quite, but it does pertain to the perception of privacy in games, and to what mood you set as game admins.

Blizzard enacted a zero-tolerance policy to a point where someone claiming you did the nasty could be enough to get you banned for a while, evidence be damned. Other games I've played have been, anything goes, and in some cases, admins will be snooping, or even using admin commands to make their virtual girlfriends go down on them while the player is AFK.

It's not a code issue. It's a people issue. And in that, it's an admin issue. The policy you set as admin, the way you act and carry yourself, carries over to the player base. Players mimic the attitude of the admin team.

Arkandel

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Privacy in gaming:

Blizzard enacted a zero-tolerance policy to a point where someone claiming you did the nasty could be enough to get you banned for a while, evidence be damned.

That's a corporation caving to liability issues though, not something related to privacy.

If you wanted to discuss that for WoW specifically though there really isn't any privacy at all, but players are warned in the EULA regarding this. Every conversation, personal or over a channel, is permanently logged.

I'm okay with that. I'm warned and aware, I have the choice to play the game or not, that's fair.

faraday

@Arkandel said in Privacy in gaming:

Every conversation, personal or over a channel, is permanently logged.

One also has to consider the technology involved. We're so used to ancient MUSH tech with its live-telnet feed, but that's just not how virtually anything else works these days. WoW, forums, slack/discord, storium, Facebook messenger, gmail... they all store all conversations too. It's not because the admins are trying to (or even want to) snoop on everything, it's because that's what you need to do on a technical level to enable asynchronous communication. We should be careful not to subscribe suspicion or malice to a purely technical necessity. (Not that you were -- just making a general comment.)

L. B. Heuschkel

@Arkandel said in Privacy in gaming:
I have the choice to play the game or not, that's fair.

Indeed you do. That's why I no longer play. That is, not the logging, but the decision to use the banhammer seemingly at random, and by doing so, enabling a certain kind of player to disrupt the game play of other players without actual evidence or cause.

Derp

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Privacy in gaming:

enabling a certain kind of player to disrupt the game play of other players without actual evidence or cause.

This is one of my big peeves in the MU community too. These players absolutely exist here, and are getting even more ability to behave poorly due to the social climate.

This is one reason why I'm kind of glad that Ares makes it so easy to flag pretty much anything. There is now no reason to not provide actual evidence of wrongdoing.

Arkandel

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Privacy in gaming:

That is, not the logging, but the decision to use the banhammer seemingly at random

Imagine running a MUSH but instead of 20-40 players online you have hundreds of thousands. You need to hire a lot of staff to manage it, train them, monitor them... some will be good, some will suck, and being consistent in all of these different, complex situations is next to impossible.

I suspect that's why Blizzard's in-game decisions seem random. One of those hundreds of employees decided something and they have so many tickets opened daily that auditing them is a major complex operation on its own - and they're probably falling behind.

It also explains why newer games have no in-game chat. You can't be a perv when all you have to communicate with others is emoticons.

L. B. Heuschkel

@Arkandel Oh yes. I am aware. One of my real life friends is a GM at Blizzard. I'd rather marry a duck-billed platypus than take that job. I do think my point stands, though -- you send a signal as admins, on what is acceptable and what is not. Even if you can only give the illusion of fairness, you try -- and at least some players will buy into it. When you don't bother, then most players won't either.

L. B. Heuschkel

@Tinuviel That's my experience as well. Players need to know that their complaints were heard and considered, even if nothing visible occurs. "We are looking into it and trying to handle it, let us know if it happens again" will get you a lot further than radio silence, in terms of player patience.

Tinuviel

@faraday said in Privacy in gaming:

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Privacy in gaming:

"We are looking into it and trying to handle it, let us know if it happens again" will get you a lot further than radio silence, in terms of player patience.

Absolutely, but that's targeted to the person making the complaint. There's a HUGE difference between that and public shaming of a bbpost saying "Faraday screwed up and has been warned." If I saw a game doing that for every infraction, it would be a huge red flag to me. But that's just me personally.

Unfortunately for every complainant, there's bound to be a few people that had a similar issue with a person but didn't do anything about it - for whatever reason. There has to be some method of spreading the news that punishment, or whatever one wants to call it, has been meted out without turning it into some sort of public shaming.

Ganymede

@faraday said in Privacy in gaming:

If the problem is bad enough that the person doesn't belong in your community, then you ban them. Otherwise I think rehabilitation is more productive than punitive actions.

Rehabilitation is a wonderful concept, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to be a counselor for someone who clearly has issues. I concur that rehabilitation is more productive than punishment, but I don't expect as a player that staff instruct or convert someone into a productive player; that's entirely on them.

And, let's face it, we're not talking about people who just "don't understand how to MUSH." The problem players we are talking about are legitimate problems on a game, and need removal rather than coddling.