Talk:Policy:Scripting policy

General Comments

Please keep discussion on this issue to the specific topic of the page title. Other Policy subjects can be discussed on the other appropriate policy pages.

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Discussion

Interfering with scripting checks

Should there be a portion here about not interfering with scripts/bots/etc? In terms of penalties, skill reduction still makes sense, but should the loss of TDPs outside of that skill loss (aka: outright removal of stats) still exist? I don't know if there should be a definitive "you will always be behind until the next respec/stat-wipe in the game" situation. Also wondering if Plat's penalty going straight to 3 is still something that's useful. --TEVESHSZAT (talk) 12:01, 9 October 2016 (CDT)

Thoughts on AFK scripting

Some of my thoughts on afk scripting since there was a meeting about it recently.

1. I don't want it fully legal, the fallen comes to mind.
2. I don't want it too strict and harsh, the population of plat comes to mind. I think if the majority honestly wanted this full rp environment and no scripting plat would be full of people, but it's not.
3. I think a lot people are not really honest about it, want to stay off the gm radar, or want to gain favoritism with the gms so most discussion I see on it reeks of that. Most people afk script sometimes. Some do it 24/7 (which is bad) and the people complaining I believe are really just frustrated they will never catch up to people good at scripting. I don't really think it has much to do with impacting role playing or making the mud feel dead like they like to claim.
4. I'm very concerned about oversight and fairness if this policy becomes strictly enforced. God forbid a GM would warn one of their favorite players. I'm just being fully candid here.
5. I watch my screen for the most part but I will admit there are times I'm not completely paying attention. If policy was enforced very strictly. I would probably get warned at some point and I would go play another game. I'm not interested in gaining favoritism to avoid gms targeting me for a video game. If I was confident the checks were completely random, which I probably have no way of being, I might be more inclined to stay and take my lumps and adjust accordingly. However, it often felt in the past like certain players were immune from script checks or just were able to pass them even though they were afk. I imagine some have an elaborate system set up for it. I picture all kinds of alarms going off on their phone when they're getting checked. So, what it felt like always ended up happening is the power scripters and serious abusers always got away with it, the gm favorites always got away with it, and the average video game player got completely wrecked.
6. I think there would also be merit and making the game less necessary to script. 50 commands to mind lock a skill sometimes seems excessive. Why do you need 10 tools for forging? Just one example. Why not automate some of it on the backend so you can be afk while not actually typing anything in. Like, braid grass until mind locked. Isn't there some balance to be had here? I think simply going after punishing players with harsh punishments and not doing anything else is going to destroy the player base.
7. The penalties are way too harsh as well. If I got warned, I would cancel and play another game. That's just the way it is. On the flipside, people cancel because they can't keep up with scripters. So give them the ability to keep up with them without having to write such advanced scripts? I know it's such a delicate balance, you don't want it to be too easy.
8. Other ideas I've heard are to implement are xp and loot penalties if you're logged in for exceptionally long periods of time.
9. This would be a fair system. Implement automated script checks, take GM bias out of the equation for AFK scripting purposes. Every day everyone gets at least one script check. Would have to code some new ones to use in the beginning. It's fair but it will never ever happen because we all know it would completely annihilate the player base. That's the reality of the situation and I hope it's considered with whatever is done. I hope the focus is on making automation less appealing rather than punishing people for it.

--JWARK4 (talk) 15:29, 10 October 2016 (CDT)

For clarification's sake, scripting is allowed to Plat. I agree that the penalty for getting caught afk scripting is a bit extreme. But scripting is 100% allowed. --TEVESHSZAT (talk) 16:22, 10 October 2016 (CDT)

One of the GMs made a beautiful post on the official forums about how they did lots of AFK checks when they first started, but basically do none now. I think their post (http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/DragonRealms%20Policy%20Discussions/Scripting%20policy/view/1350 and find the post by DR-RAESH) ties into points 4, 5, and 6. Their point was basically A) AFK checks take a while to perform; B) even when they identify an AFKer, there is paperwork; C) there are better places to spend GM time; and D) the root cause is not AFKers, but that the game encourages AFK scripting so much. To point 8, I feel it would unduly impact F2P players. I keep some characters logged in for very long periods of time, but that's a necessity since I don't have offline drain. Build up field exp during the day, then let it drain overnight. SHELTIM (talk) 09:16, 12 October 2016 (CDT)

-Penalties are far too severe, if you think that's not the case look at how many have quit because of it. Especially once you get to the 1k+ rank range, losing 100 ranks at that level is subscription altering. And then you not only lose those ranks, which do NOT come fast at all, you lose stats as well? No wonder people quit over that stuff. I propose a learning reduction, something than can progress if you are a repeat offender, 10% less exp gain for first, then 20% for second offense, 30% etc, most of us that have played for a long time remember how brutal the game used to be in regards to learning, if you don't remember then roll up a F2P, it sucks! And maybe for 3rd+ offense, start using the increasing lockout (which used to be the punishment back in the day anyways), at 3rd offense maybe a 48 hour lockout (since it is the 3rd offense 2 days to start sounds fair). And for people to say "just go to the fallen", the utter lack of people sucks, some of us like to watch the numbers but also like to interact with others, not to mention the extra cost of the subscription on a sub that's already borderline too high compared to every other online game. --GORTUNG (talk) 23:51, 7 January 2017 (CST)

This is like the war on drugs that continues to destroy lives over minor infractions, but in a 20+ year old text based game. I get how obstructive a few lines of text can be to some, but isn't it about time to chill out? Most players I talk to in confidence will actually defend other players against the GM's at this point. Don't expect any reporting from me and you can warn me if you want over it.

Another slap in the face is that GM's use tactics that no player can replicate. I can't scroll up and look at/write down my skills list for more then 30 seconds without being stressed out and scrolling down to see if a GM is doing some random environmental check on me even though I would instantly notice any player related action such as whispers, tapping me, entering a room or just saying hi. So much effort went into bypassing normal game mechanics so GM's can catch a player that is not completely focused on the game that it's lost the point.

Policy enforcement needs to move one way or the other

I think this policy enforcement needs to move one way or the other. The current middle ground of being mostly unenforced except against less complex scripts and used as a grudge tool by people is untenable. Given the manpower issues already being faced policy enforcement seems unrealistic and a pointless arms race that alienates paying customers. Doubly so when HLC and plat sales are flourishing. It seems like if anything you'd want more paying customers scripting part of the time for 4 years instead of the HLC they'll buy for a month before getting bored and moving on again. People complain about inflation (both skills and coins) but these problems are there regardless of scripting due to real money sales.

Look at the current state of the game, this is what the game is like with rampant scripting. Removing this policy isn't going to make it more rampant because it's going on already at extreme levels. We're at least a decade out from what this game looked like without extensive and prolonged scripting violations. It seems like we can try and return to that past which is a big financial investment and alienates both caught players and everyone else by making them wait on further delayed development. All this to gamble that it would become a better game (or more profitable from SIMUs perspective). Alternatively we're left accepting the state of things as they are. Cut free the manpower that goes into that now, salvage the dev effort that goes into maintaining TF. Focus on making systems that aren't more rewarding for scripts than manual play. As it is the scripters are paying for accounts and simu coins; they're helping keep the lights on. If they're only ATK 4 hours of every 24 it's still 4 hours with more people in the world to interact with and another face to create the crowd in the city street. (Yes yes, fallacy of the excluded middle, but the policy revamp discussion and GM comments really makes it seem like staying where we are isn't an option.)

There's already no keeping up with the Joneses and what we have now is ProgressQuest crossed with an ADHD test. --SEPED (talk) 12:58, 12 October 2016 (CDT)

+1 SHELTIM (talk) 19:05, 12 October 2016 (CDT)

Eliminate scripting policy when it isn't preventing others from enjoying the game, incentivize non-scripting tasks

People should remember that the PLAYERS requested the skillcaps constantly be raised - the reason scripting is required is player skills are spread over multiple years or even a decade of character training. If people didn't want this massive gap and time investment, they'd be comfortable with the skill caps being lowered dramatically, and/or the nature of TDPs being changed such that 'train all the skills' wasn't the best way to play.

I'm fine with a complete elimination of the scripting policy so long as its activity is not preventing others from enjoying the game. Since that's a fairly difficult thing to blithely define, just update the policy to reflect as much -

1. Characters have no claims to hunting rooms.
2. Update consent to reflect potential harassment (i.e., following characters and skinning/looting their kills, pointing them, etc.
3. What have you.

Honestly, if the GMs/Devs are angry with the state of AFK scripters, they should incentivize people to do things other than script. That means game events, storylines that move, player interaction that matters. Players are to blame insofar as paying so heavily into revenue events, but the lack of stuff going on means that players fill the time doing something, anything. Given the lack of support for player lead RP events, it's no wonder players are scripting as heavily as they are, let alone the PvP rank disparity issues.

--JHALIASCLERIC (talk) 13:25, 12 October 2016 (CDT)

+1 --Dartellum Waddle, WarMage (talk) 10:53, 13 October 2016 (CDT)

+1 --ALLIZAR2012 (talk) Replace scripting policy with a disruption policy:

I would like to see the scripting policy replaced with a disruption policy that gives incentive to enjoy the game without causing harm and harassment to others.

First offense would be a verbal/automated warning only. Moved into violation room to review. No loss, this warning is for information purposes only basically:

Second offense would be a verbal/automated warning with loss of field experience and moved into violation room. Assigned to a player mentor in case there is any confusion.

Third offense would be a 1 day lockout

Fourth offense would be a 1 week lockout

Fifth offense would be a 30 day lockout.

Disruptions are defined as:

Intentionally disrupting another player without consent with actions such as dragging or stunning.

Unnecessary screen scroll done without gain (collecting rocks is fine, kicking an environmental rock by mistake 70000 times is not)

Dropping more than 10 items on the ground within a 5 minute period.

etc etc

The incentives to script are too big

Whatever the policy is, there is a huge incentive to scripting AFK. This is how you can advance your character.

Indeed, I dislike the separation of gameplay (actually immersing yourself, talking to people, walking around reading descriptions, etc..) from advancing your character (braid grass, read compendium, observe sky, predict, etc..). I don't think there is any immersion found in repetition of mind numbing tasks. If I overnight script, I can gain 0.25 of a rank in something! If I sit down and actively play the game, I do not advance. It is a system which promotes automation and further, you have a system which advancing is literally typing the same command over and over and over. That said, I don't think you will ever lose the automation, but you can merge the gameplay with advancement and then I will feel less incentive to script and to actually PLAY the game. Please do not punish me for wanting to play the game and also advance my character. --ARCHIMEDIAN (talk) 13:52, 12 October 2016 (CDT)

+1 --Dartellum Waddle, WarMage (talk) 10:53, 13 October 2016 (CDT)

The challenge is two fold: time to gain skills and perception. For the first, the game is measured in years. Given this, a new character will never catch up to a character decades old. The need to AFK script to catch up is then realized. Even with AFK scripting, progress is slow and takes year or more. As an example, when I returned from a rest I started forging. Two years later, and not doing AFK scripting, going to the forge and doing workorders I am only in the mid 200s. I am not complaining about that; just showing an example as to why some would AFK script to get to a point where they can make decent weapons, armor, or tools.

The second challenge is perception. No matter what the policy is or is not, some will perceive it as bad. Perception is also why some complain about 'keeping up.' Perception is the most challenging aspect to address. Some have the perception they cannot help in an invasion if they are low level. I am not against AFK scripting as I feel it does not affect my game play and it does not advance one as fast as someone perceives.

As others have stated, the game needs more events to draw people's attention. I know some items toward this are in the works and I applaud the efforts! I play the game because I enjoy it. I do enjoy interactions with others. If they do not answer, I treat them as NPCs and move on. I say remove AFK scripting policy.

--Dartellum Waddle, WarMage (talk) 10:53, 13 October 2016 (CDT)

Being rewarded for "immersing yourself" is a nice thought. It's also completely unrealistic. There will never be enough GMs to babysit every character in the game to enable roleplaying-based advancement. Short of that, there is no possible advancement system that wouldn't incentivize AFK scripting.--MRTSCR (talk) 20:26, 23 October 2016 (CDT)

As a returning player (last played in MSN Zone), I have been playing for roughly 4-5 months now, and here is my thoughts on scripting. As much as I enjoy the game, and love the improvements, it still feels like a huge time commitment to improve ranks. I have enough going on, that I would end up getting bored before getting into any meaningful content. Killing creatures for days to weeks to improve is boring. So instead, I spent most of my scripting while talking with people. I will occasionally craft, but i would say more than 90% of the game i'm probably relying on scripts. The issue I see, is for such an old game, veterans may enjoy the achievement of how long it took, and where they are at currently. However, for new and returning players, we cannot dedicate years just to reach a decent rank. Things have changed, but it feels similar to the old game. It takes forever to rank up, and it's only faster if you have a paid account. So when you have kids, responsibilities, a job, etc. It's tough to get anywhere, especially if you get bored before you do, or another player turns you off the game. It varies, but scripting is almost needed. It would be nice if things change, so it doesn't feel as necessary. However, not to the point of ruining other people's time commitment and achievements. Until things change, to allow younger characters to progress fast enough to catch up to a point (not max, but have decent skill), then I would suggest the policies should reflect today's game market. That may include being lighter to scripting, while still not allowing it to run amok. --DAKRE (talk) 10:16, 21 November 2017 (CST)

AFK check methods

I would like Simu to find a better way to do AFK checks. I have failed one while at the keyboard simply because I didn't know that a bunny (or whatever it was) hopping in my room was a check! This was on my second day in the game (as a player, not character!), so I wasn't even aware that AFK checks existed. Even a few weeks later, when I was AFK checked again, it took me minutes to realize a leprechaun (or whatever it was) dancing in my room was an AFK check and respond. The verbiage is very poor in those checks. SHELTIM (talk) 06:23, 19 October 2016 (CDT)

Do away with script checks, encourage self-policing

Script checks are deeply problematic. Imagine being a new player and seeing a rabbit telling you to jump repeatedly. You don't jump because you don't see why your character would obey a rabbit. Suddenly you're in a policy violation room. How do you feel about this? Do you continue to give DR a chance, or does this make you uncomfortable enough to move on to a different game? I know what the answer was for a RL friend I'd briefly convinced to try DR.

Next imagine you've been working on your character for over 10 years. Through inattentiveness or neglect you fail a script check. Now you have a choice: Keep playing, knowing there's a risk you might lose years of training with a single mistake, or quit. For me it would be an easy decision. There are many who feel the same, as evidenced by the long history of players quitting DR after receiving AFK warnings.

Furthermore script checks and the resultant consults are poor uses of staff time. Doing away with script checks would free GMs up to work on new content for DR and fix game bugs. Most players would agree that this should be the priority.

AFK scripting isn't going away. The current overly punitive policy, despite ruining the game for many, has been ineffective. This is due to the inherent nature of DR as a text-based game with a time-intensive exp curve. History has shown that there is simply no way to eradicate or even significantly discourage AFK scripting.

We are then fortunate that AFK scripting is not the actual problem. The problem is scripts that are disruptive, AFK or not. Most players, myself included, prefer a game where most characters aren't unresponsive bots who generate scroll, steal hunting rooms, and generally cause frustration. Luckily these things are completely preventable.

How? Stop discouraging players from interfering with scripters. Make unresponsive characters fair game to attack. Roll this into the upcoming PvP policy reform. If players have to worry about their characters being killed, dragged, and generally abused due to scripting obnoxiously, this problem will self resolve. Players will script in out of the way areas to avoid conflict, or write scripts that do not cause disruption.

In this way no one would have the game-ruining experience of receiving an AFK warning. For the first time in DR history the frustration of dealing with scripters would be alleviated due to players being empowered to stop obnoxious behavior. With a crowdsourced solution, GMs will be able work on things that benefit us all.--MRTSCR (talk) 20:14, 23 October 2016 (CDT)

It's worth pointing out that while the first few checks are IC, the checks you get before you're actually cautioned/warned/etc are grossly OOC and can include things like SENDs, bright yellow text, and other very blatant alerts. --TEVESHSZAT (talk) 21:11, 23 October 2016 (CDT)

That is true, at least in some cases. Judging from the logs I've read the time between SENDs and a warning is very short.

Let's imagine a paradigm where script checks were modified to be a full five minutes of unambiguous OOC SENDs. Would this be more palatable to new players? Would inattentive or unsavvy players miss less checks? Would it waste less staff time? Any change in those parameters would be insignificant. And certainly script checks would remain a failed solution to a problem that amounts to a red herring. It's time to try something different.--MRTSCR (talk) 23:07, 23 October 2016 (CDT)

As someone who just recieved an afk warning on Jan 6, there was no bright colored text UNTIL I had recieved the warning. Was I afk? Yes, it was 6am I had fallen asleep, my fault completely. Now, I play a necro, 99% of the time I need to stay away from populated areas, the hunting ground I was using is very remote for these purposes, combine those and you have a very lonely progression which gets very boring so you end up watching the numbers or being a pain in the ass to everyone in town constantly. Was my script disrupting anyone at all? No. Was there a lack of hunting rooms? Definitely not as there's not that many people out here. Typing "attack" 80 billion times is not exciting, I've played off and on since 2000 so the combat messaging has more or less lost its fun factor in all its goriness. I've actually only been back for about a week after taking a few months off and am now contemplating quitting for good because I'd rather just quit where I'm at than take an exp/stat hit because I fell asleep again, like so many others over the years. Self-policing would alleviate this, someone finds me afk, they poke and prod and I don't respond so they take some vigilante justice to my face, sweet, good deal, I might lose a weapon, maybe try a new hunting ground, and just like necros get their names highlighted so they never get forgotten so will people highlight the names of afk people and I guarantee they'll get checked on by the populace. --GORTUNG (talk) 23:39, 7 January 2017 (CST)

I quit for 3 years because of a single first violation warning due to failing a script check. I came back, but if I ever get another one I would walk away from DR forever. I regularly let my hunt script run while I wash the dishes or watch netflix. I instantly see and react to any player interaction but would likely fail an environmental check because I don't watch that screen closely. Lynch me if you will, but I am the average player these days. --Allizar2012

Some characters receive more AFK checks than others

I haven't had an AFK check in over a year. I have friends who swear they've received five or more in that time. Still others claim they've never had a script check in their history of playing DR. It's impossible for any player to know for certain what causes this, but I'll offer three hypotheses:

1. Bad scripting. Generating scroll in popular rooms, hunting in impacted areas, etc.
2. Revenge-reporting. Player A has undesirable interaction with character B, reports character B for scripting.
3. Staff bias. Whether blatantly or implicitly, it's possible that disliked characters are selected for script checks more frequently.

1 isn't very defensible. But I had a look through my friends' scripts for troubleshooting purposes. They were stationary scripts that hunted in areas medium to low in popularity. Therefore #1 clearly can't explain all cases of frequent checks. 2 and 3 shouldn't be possible. Reporting shouldn't ever be accessible as a weapon and certainly not when there is the possibility of permanent rank removal. And AFK checks clearly shouldn't be a surreptitious way to remove undesirable players. A no-GM solution to disruptive scripting would cleanly eliminate these two possibilities.--MRTSCR (talk) 23:34, 23 October 2016 (CDT)

It's also worth noting that, to my understanding, script checks aren't always blatant. GMs can observe someone and see they're not gaining exp AFK before doing a check to actively show they're paying attention. --TEVESHSZAT (talk) 00:05, 24 October 2016 (CDT)

Implement diminishing returns

My proposed solution for updating the scripting policy is basically to disincentivize the kind of scripting that is game-unbalancing and disruptive to other players. I would not propose a change to overall scripting policy (except change to penalties which I'll address at the end), but it would allow better and more fair checks against scripters so that casual gamers would be less likely to have their immersion broken by disruptive script checks.

My solution is to implement penalties that impact how productive heavy-scripting can be as well as reduce the rewards for being a heavy-scripter. Rather than the old method of experience slow-downs (as it is already a crawl with a F2P account), I would propose the following reductions as a starting out point, but this is certainly open to additional suggestions:
- Reduced creature spawn rate that affects your room only, not the ground in general
- Reduction of value of drops
- Reduction of payouts for contract trading
- Reduction of payouts for completed work orders
- Reduction in experience gains from listening to classes
- Luck penalties if appropriate to whatever the Luck system becomes

These penalties would be on a sliding, gradual scale. Let's say for simplicity's sake, we call this Shun, since that's basically what's going to happen to you. Basically you will be Shunned if you remain logged in constantly and training at all times beyond what a mortal IG and OOG could accomplish (think about it, 24 hours of hunting is literally 4 straight days in DR, and also 24 straight hours of a person hypothetically at the keyboard). You increase Shun for long duration spent logged in, but you shrug it off during times of non-training so that if you're the type to stay logged in to catch all the gweth chatter, you can do so freely. However, training also earns Shun which will then cause you to start outpacing how quickly you can shrug it off.

As a very basic example, consider you earn 1% Shun for every skill you have in field experience over [2/34] every 5 minutes and 50% shun every 4 hours. You shrug off 1 full Shun "point" every hour if training, or 50% of your Shun every hour if NO training is occurring. If you are training 10 skills actively, constantly, you will earn .2 Shun every hour, plus .5 every 4 hours. After 16 straight hours, you would be at 7.2 points of this. If training 35 skills, you gain 3.2 every hour, plus the .5 every 4 hours, so after 16 hours you would be at 55.2.

I would imagine 10 points would be a small, probably barely noticeable penalty and by the time you hit 40, it's getting pretty bad and at 80 you're barely getting any creatures and earning coppers on the silver of what you're used to. So 24 hours of really hard core training would pretty much necessitate a decently long break.

Benefits:
- It disincentives long-term heavy scripting by creating tangible penalties to monetary gains from people who non stop hunt or non stop craft AND it prevents people from circumventing it by merely swapping back and forth between the hunt and the craft hall. - To that point, the penalties are results-affecting instead of process-affecting so clever-er scripts like those that check for mind locks or full pouches won't help.
- It makes it increasingly more difficult to make good returns on combat training in particular as spawn rate and the ability to keep combat skills locked will be reduced. This is the biggest source of salt when people say afk scripting disrupts game balance. You can't bully people with knitting needles.
- It makes it easy to identify abusive scripters simply by auditing Shun levels. See a player with 60 Shun? Maybe give them a little nudge. Players who script but aren't super good at it can still get checked and may still rise to those kinds of high levels, but they won't necessarily be bright on the radar.
- It leaves it still very possible for people to remain logged in at all times as long as they are still exhibiting some balance of training and not. - Depending on what Luck affects, it could provide an additional outlet for this attribute.

As for the penalties for scripting, I do feel that skill and stat loss is too extreme even for repeat offenders, as properly executed, this system would significantly reduce one's ability to grind away for days or weeks on end and unbalance the game, so massively abusing afk scripting policy is sort of nonsensical anyway. I think penalties should begin with dumping a lot of Shun on a player, then penalizing their Luck, then giving stat and skill Debuffs of increasing durations and scope. Maybe first infraction is 100 Shun and some bad luck. Then maybe 200 Shun, bad luck, and -5% to all skills for 72 hours. Third time could be -10% to stats, -10% to skills for 10 days, etc.

Bonus ideas: Empathic shock for high Shun? Would discourage healer bots. Increased favor costs for high Shun to discourage people just dumping exp into orbs when they start to get into the red zone.--PEANUTBRITTLE (talk) 21:56, 10 January 2017 (CST)