I have had issues with gwethsmashers for a long time. But asking for changes, arguing about them, talking about them or anything does no go.

The policy that GMs stand firmly on is put simply. IF they can smash you, at any time, for any reason at all. No reason is itself a reason, this is why they always say there has never been a issue of smashing someone for no reason.

The GMs don't seem to care that its the little things that add up to kill the gaming experience for players. And having to be afraid to use the gweth is thankfully not at a high level. But when you are not disturbing the public by using the gweth and someone you never met, talked to, interacted with, or even know, smashes you out of the blue. Well that goes a lot farther then some gibberish on the gweth does. You can use the ignore feature for a reason but that simple solution is never advised instead smash.

The game was much better when immature players did not have ability to directly cause problems for other players. But instead had to reply on just being a jerk that other players could just ignore, walk away from, ignore or report if had to.

>>PALLADIUM's post

Please note the many posts by GM Armifer on this topic recently that have specifically stated that we as GMs are in fact looking into potential ways of changing how gweths/gwethsmashing work and/or their continued existence in the game.

-Persida

Thanks for the heads up GM-P. I was not keeping up on the smasher stats. As far as GM you named,all I have heard was 1, They created the smasher enchant system. 2, They saw no neef to change it. 3, huggie smooches on the gweth than any abuse. 4, If I or any one got smashed it was likely we deserved it. 5, Smashing was a non-GM event and so don't report to us, contact feedback.

And thanks Tev, but I'm not the type to hang on to a feed and spout OMG! LOLz! OMB I FAILZ. So no likely chance of me facepalming and other nonsense. Thanks.

I guess you mean my "does no go" ? Type on a cellphone touch screen. Never made a typing error I guess.

>>And I still take exception to anyone else breaking items on my character.

So do I. At the risk of echoing previous posts, have you actually read the recent thread on gwethsmasher usage? You seem to be very angry about the opposite of what I've been writing.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

I always have to wonder when someone claims repeated victimization on the gweths. Actual harassment is one thing, but that never confines itself just to the gweths, almost invariably involves far worse than just gwethsmashing, and none the examples I have seen of people being gwethsmashed have fallen into this category. Someone makes a wise-crack about someone else's character. Someone insults someone's wife. Someone makes an OOC reference. Someone gweths too often or in an annoying fashion. People can and do respond with gwethsmashing.

And if someone does something to your character and you don't want the interaction to continue then just walk away. The drama can end with you. I have lost track of the number of times I've watched an interaction devolve into something that someone inevitably posts, reports, or complains to their friends in game about when all that needed to be done about it is just to stop interacting, and that includes getting your friends, or worse alts, involved.

And on the very off chance someone actually does have someone repeatedly gwethsmashing them just for the heck of it, then nothing will cause them to become bored with that faster than a non-response from you. A literal non-response. Don't diss the person within your group of friends, don't respond on the gweth when you get access back, don't act all huffy at the person with RP verbs if they walk into the same room as you. Don't even tell them or others that you are over it or don't care, because that response indicates otherwise to them. Literally nothing. They'll drop you as a target faster than you will believe.

<<I'm at a loss for what you're trying to argue.

It's because he hasn't bothered to read anything and so he is still beating the dead horse while everyone else has hitched their wagon to a brand new one already.

Your right... why have I not bothered to keep up on something that I have been told ir have the response too that all boil down to this..


There is no policy for the uses of gwethsmasher. Smash whomever you! For whatever reasons you can think of! Have your friends smash them too thats wonder as well!

You most likely deserved being smashed. But with no policy or guide lines for reasons to smash someone how do you know if someone deserved it then? Oh because they can! Thats right simply because is a perfect reason. (Sorry this type of logic is what has lead to the problem and is the major fuel for my detesting of them.)

Gwethamashers were limited for a reason in the past. But when they released into the public for everyone to use they got into the hands of some people who lack the maturity to be allowed access to such things.

The GM who created the smasher enchantment system had said they where happy (at the time in years past) with them being out and used. And saw no reasons to change them.

So after so many years since their release, the default blaiming of victems who have been hit by troublemakers with them. The Creater GM even agreeing that the targets where all at fault and likely deserved it (sounding that there was zero chance of abuse ever happening.)

I gave up on a topic I grew sick of.

Sorry I didnt bother to read up. I assumed the normal non-gm involvement would also mean they would not change it since ... DUH...DERP or whatever sound you make for stupidity.. that would be imvolvement.

P.S.

Don't like my typing or find a typo... this was posted via a touch screen phone.

Soon..... in dragonrealms.... has a different time/space reference length.

And sorry the bone of major contention for you and others is I didnt keep up on a topic I stopped focusing on and instead tried to focus on other things.

So until its in testing i hold off getting my hopes up.

Until it is actually live and active in game I will not worry about it.

Been waiting for enchanting since around 1996 on AOL. That is more to keeping my interests.

I would like to meet you in game some time Tev. I like your take on things.

The current gwethsmash policy is rooted in the fiction that high level characters have some kind of 'extra maturity' and/or 'know better' then new or under-circled players(who actually tend to be far better RPers and far more knowledgeable about everything from lore to game policy.) If anything the deciding factor should be based on time played and not circles.

However, I think last night's gweth debacle with a clearly new (never played before) player got me to change my view on gwethsmashing and gweth thump. I say just get rid of gweths altogether, nothing really important gets said on them anyway and frankly it acts only to incubate conflict and poisons the playerbase against each other. Adding the ability to gwethsmash just put fuel onto the fire, now it's not even about words anymore, I can now HURT your character through my gweth over long distances. It's a recipe for disaster and a lot of cancelled accounts.

I don't think the problem is gweths or gwethsmashing. I think the problem lies with people who get so upset when another player has a negative impact on them that they come onto the forums to rant and cancel their accounts because of it. If they were truly playing for the RP then they would take any situation and roll with it, even if it doesn't turn out as expected or in their favor, and not let it ruin the game for them to the point that they quit.

That said, I agree that Gweth-thumping (without item destruction) is something that needs to happen, as I'm sure everyone else does.

Is there noone else who finds it a weird coincidence that this is such a hot topic the past couple of weeks? Moreover, the posters all claim forum ignorance even when the most recent posts here have the words "gweth" and "smash" in the subject.

Either people have been hoarding smashers for the month of April or the poster is Ashton Kutcher. I know, false dichotomy... Right?

>>I don't think the problem is gweths or gwethsmashing. I think the problem lies with people who get so upset when another player has a negative impact on them that they come onto the forums to rant and cancel their accounts because of it. If they were truly playing for the RP then they would take any situation and roll with it, even if it doesn't turn out as expected or in their favor, and not let it ruin the game for them to the point that they quit.<<

Dunno.

Awhile back someone was trying to beef with me. They would smash me during RP events, while I was trying to do Order stuff, pretty much whenever it would be as inconvenient as possible, as part of a pattern of general harassment intended to get me to attack them or otherwise melt down. Being targeted like that was pretty tilting. It's hard to roll with it when "it" is someone trying to ruin your play experience for as long as they're able to get away with doing it. Before it happened to me I would have dismissed the same complaint with a "walk it off", but going through the experience has changed my opinion.

IMO mechanics and policies that can facilitate harassment need to be handled with some sensitivity. Gwethsmashing falls in this category because being smashed imposes a fairly large inconvenience - locking the smashee out of the gweth and ring systems for a couple hours and destroying their devices - and per policy it is usable for essentially any reason. That grants a lot of power to someone with a few smashers to burn to make someone's IG life difficult.

I'm glad the subject is getting recognition and that a new model is being considered. Overall I think a gweth thump model in which many more people can use the tool (because it's not gated by an expensive device), but in which each use only imposes a short period of silence and no item loss, would be as good or better for moderating the tone of the gweth network without a lot of the associated potential for harassment.


Mazrian

>>I think the problem lies with people who get so upset when another player has a negative impact on them that they come onto the forums to rant and cancel their accounts because of it. If they were truly playing for the RP then they would take any situation and roll with it, even if it doesn't turn out as expected or in their favor, and not let it ruin the game for them to the point that they quit.

I'm comfortable saying that, while a minority of players, there are enough of a minority of players who are generally jerks who just enjoy being jerks that I can be annoying. This is not unique to multiplayer games (nor society at large), but I also think "just deal with it, it might be fun" is a bad policy.

In other words, I'm not swayed by the argument that we should give people looking for a fight a fight, especially when I am skeptical that they're looking for a roleplay situation themselves.

---

Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

I don't think it's fair to say that gwethsmashing is just a form of griefing. Gwethsmashing can happen for many reasons that aren't griefing by a reasonable standard. But Gwethsmashers and Gweth policy as they are today are convenient for griefing in ways we could change.

Mazrian

Harassment isn't what I meant by my comment. I understand people use gwethsmashing as a means to grief people, but it's a small portion of it's use not the norm as some people are making it out to be.

This whole situation is reminiscent of God giving free will to humans. You give a human a choice and nine out of ten times he'll make the wrong one. It's just too much power for him to handle.

>nine out of ten times he'll make the wrong one

The vast majority of human history, particularly the salient fact that more of it continues to be made every day, flies in the face of this notion (tabling the dubious invocation of God). If we were such poor decision makers we would have died out long ago. What any of that has to do with gwethsmashing is beyond me though.

I think what I'm taking with me, walking away from this mindbogglingly crazy thread is this: I don't use my smashers NEARLY enough.

Samsaren

>>Harassment policy.

This is an aside, but I think worth talking about here re: why changing gwethsmashing is more desirable than changing harassment policy.

Enforcement of harassment policy basically works like this, as I understand it:

A player gets aggressed on.

If the player responds - fights back, talks smack, etc - there is no harassment. There's an ongoing conflict that is fine under harassment policy and the staff won't get involved unless one of the parties complains about some other policy violation.

If the complaining player removes themself from the situation and avoids the alleged harasser, doesn't antagonize the alleged harasser, etc, and the alleged harasser isn't doing something like acting on consent, there may be justification for the staff to get involved under harassment policy - if the complaining player ASSISTs to complain.

If the ASSIST goes in and the other requirements have been met, the staff will start a log that an instance of aggression happened. After that, the complaining player ASSISTs after each additional instance of aggression(assuming again that the complaining player is not antagonizing the alleged harasser at all, has taken reasonable steps to avoid them, etc). Once a pattern of behavior can be established, a GM can go officially tell the harassing player to knock it off under harassment policy.

The process can be long, and if a player is being harassed they basically have to be patient and wait however long it takes for the wheels to turn. That is not unreasonable. It is extremely frustrating for the complaining player. Unfortunately, I can't think of a better way to do it that wouldn't obligate the staff to get involved whenever someone asks for it without establishing a pattern. And not only is that not feasible, I don't think it's really desirable in an RPG - sometimes bad things are going to happen and that's part of the game.

So harassment policy can't be changed very much. What can be changed are the mechanical ways players can be... I want to use another word but I can't here so I'll just say unpleasant... to eachother so it's just less possible to do harm before policy kicks in. That has been the trend with other things - can't use Tingle or Mental Blast to steal anyone's items, it's harder to graverob than it used to be, strict PvP policy, etc. Changing gweth smashing to a short-duration gweth thump that doesn't destroy items would be another change in the same spirit of moderating the ways we can be unpleasant to eachother. It's sort of the best we can do absent a better way to enforce policy against harassment.

Mazrian