Difference between revisions of "Dealing with abusive players (Tutorial)"

Revision as of 18:35, 29 April 2011

You're happy in your town, and suddenly, a player comes crashing in, trying to ruin the game for the others. This tutorial attempts to help you deal with these kind of players.

Griefers

Sadly, there are players who like to ruin the game experience of the other players. They will close the gate during the day, take items from the bank and block construction work. The best course of action when dealing with these kind of players is to file a complaint and encourage others in the forums to do the same.

Selfish players

Sometimes, you will encounter a player who only thinks about him or herself. They take resources from the bank to upgrade their home and don't give items to the bank. You should try to get these players to cooperate, by sending them messages and asking them nicely on the forums. If that doesn't help, you should file a complaint for selfish play.

Forum trolls

These can do anything from a wide range of subjects; spam the forums, flame other citizens, create topics to confuse other citizens. Most of the time, these people are also griefers or selfish players.

The best course of action is to ignore them, and flag their comments as abusive if they are using racist, homophobic, sexist, or obscene language, or if they are in any other way violating the rules of the forum.

Inactive users

These users are kind of special. It's not like they try to ruin the fun for everyone else; they just create their character and then don't use it anymore. They are easy to recognize in the citizens list; they haven't built a tent and they still have their Doggy Bag and their Citizen's Welcome Pack in their chest. The best way to deal with these kind of players is to post a list of their names on the forums and discuss what to do. It's possible to just ignore them and hope the zombies eat them first if they break through the walls. It's better though to file a complaint against them (minimal participation) and encourage other active players to do the same. That way, you can use their doggy bag and welcome pack for the good of the city.

Complaints

Since these play such a central role in dealing with abusive players, I'll go a bit more in-depth here. Complaints are issued by going to a citizens' house and clicking on 'file a complaint'. To go to a citizens' house, you can either go to the citizens list and click their name or you can click on their name in a forum post. Once you've done that, you should select what kind of a complaint you want to file, and lastly, you have to confirm it. If eight or more complaints are filed against a citizen, he or she will be shunned. That citizen will then become a pariah, and won't have as much privileges as normal citizens.

For example:

• They can't take anything from the bank. They can still donate items to it, though.
• They can't receive items from any members of the community that are not shunned themselves.
• They can't open or close the gates.
• They can't contribute AP to building construction.
• They can't vote on the daily upgrade.
• They can't take extra water from the well. (they're still allowed their daily ration, though!)
• Any items in their chest that can be useful for the town (construction materials, for example) will be deposited in the bank.

However, becoming shunned opens up new possibilities too. Things you can't do as a citizen, but can as a pariah:

• Hide your rucksack. This means that only other pariahs can see your hidden things. However, citizens have a chance to stumble upon your rucksack while searching.
• Search the city's waste. It will only give you low-quality items, but it might help you survive.
• Stage an insurrection. If this is successful, all the free citizens will become pariahs and all pariahs will become citizens.

Unfortunately, these new possibilities don't weigh up against the loss of your freedom, though. Try to refrain from the practices above and you won't become a pariah.