Posted by SphereMaker(IMM) on October 22, 1999 at 08:56:40:
In Reply to: Re: RE: Cheating, pots talking to kettles, and the like posted by Hmmm on October 21, 1999 at 19:14:14:
> Alright, that's good and all, but why is it exactly that all same site players are regarded as cheaters? What if everyone from the same site decided they want to make characters that DO have roleplaying reasons to get together...like all masters, or all part of the same religion...Now why is that cheating? They all have a legitimate reason to gang together and kill all the enemies of the Tower. This topic touches me cause I do have friends that play, and I think that one of the greatest things about online gaming is that you get to play with people you don't know AND friends in real life. I suppose you could consider that final statement the key to your argument. If, in your case, you group with RL friends sometimes, group with people you don't know at other times, I'd say you're probably playing the game as intended. Remember that this is a game and that our intention is to have a relatively level playing field for all involved. The rule I stated above (in my opinion, at least) was created for the players that (nearly) exclusively group up with their same site buddies, that then use the inherent advantages of grouping with RL friends to try and dominate the other players. You have to remember that we're never going to agree to a blanket statement of "in case X it is always ok to group with same-site friends and kill everyone you find" because inevitably we're going to hear that again and again when people are busted for cheating. We pay attention. We watch for what a player adds to the game. We watch for role-play. AND we watch for people that are trying to weasel their way past the rules. Is that somewhat subjective? You bet it is. But so are things like "will this game be more fun if I run a quest now?" or "will the game be more interesting if we add Orcs as a race?" Unfortunately, the more precise you make rules the more work people will go through to get around them; I hate rules lawyers and I trust the immortal staff to make good decisions around how to enforce them. I myself have made masters knowing damn well that one of my friends was making another master, and we just felt it was a great thing so that we can interact together. There wasn't a time once that we thought we were cheating, even though we DID gang together and kill ragers, and we DID gang together to explore new areas, and we DID group together a lot(but then again, I DID group with other masters to kill ragers, explore new areas, etc) Let's face it, if he was a rager and I was a master, how much interaction we gonna have besides killing each other over and over again.