consensual push as a solution to push-gun griefing

It has been noted elsewhere that push-guns can be a tad annoying. Here is a simple solution based around similar mechanisms that are or have been in SL.

The first time I bump into someone (or vice-versa) I get the dialog "you have been bumped by Philip Linden do you want to report abuse?". Since every single time this has happened it has been totally innocent, accidental contact; my answer has been "no" and I never looked real hard, but the dialog never comes up again.

Prior to version 1.2 when another player wanted to give me an image/landmark/etc. I would have to affirmatively accept. This was changed to a more convenient auto-accept with the option to discard.

Thus a proposed dialog message: "Object Foo has tried to impart a very strong force on you, do you wish to accept such?" If you dig this sort of thing, you can opt in, if you really don't want to be pushed into the next sim at some other player's whim, you opt out and nothing happens.

Thus, those who like gunplay can have SL be their firing zone, those who don't can just go on SLing as if push-guns don't exist. I've put the "strong force" test in because trampolines and LindenWorld rides do exert pushes but generally not enough to blow you off-world and the last time I brought this up people were concerned about breaking these "harmless" pushes.

Griefer A gets out his push gun and opts out of being pushed. He can go to somepeople who think its all fun to push and push back ecept ... he is invulnerable!

Greifer B says hm, so the limit on a push before it is a 'significant force' is X force. So he makes a gun that shoots a bullet that follows you and pushes you X - 0.2 (just to be safe) force, follows, does it again, follows does it again until you are on the other side of the world or off the sim.

Loopholes! Lots of loopholes!

1. Allow all pushes
   
2. Allow pushes from people/objects in this list (on first push: option to add person or object to this list)
   
3. Ignore all pushes from people/objects in this list (same as above)
   
4. Allow none
   

Question: What happens when you say no? Do you stay nailed in place, or does the object and/or force merely pass through you?

How about a checkbox that allows you to just ignore llPushObject?

If an object or a person bumps into you, it could still have a result that way, but by ignoring the artificially generated push you effectively nullify the most annoying of the pushes - getting tossed across multiple sims and being forced to relog.

How about making it where the one who uses a push-gun on you, gets to be pushed themselves. But pushed harder.

I like Huns idea... I would say if you have push turned off the object acts as if it did push you.

Like say you have a physical bullet with push, it hits you, does nothing, but falls to the ground and dies as the script tells it.

Or someone hits you with a giant non-physical block, it hits you but just sits there, does nothing.

Kinda like Superman

The scripts move on as though they did push you, but they didn't, the scripts never get told it didn't push you.

I understand how llPushObject() can be trouble, but just be careful that in the process of asking for something to be taken away from griefers, that you don't also lose utility from it.

Scenario:

You are building something at 2AM PST. A newbie griefer comes over and starts shooting you with a push gun. You ask him to stop and disable llPushObject.

Newbie continues to shoot at you, and although it no longer pushes you, the particles and sound it emits are becoming annoying. You ban newbie from your land and turn off particles and sound.

Newbie griefer decides that he's not happy because now you're ignoring him, so he starts to rez 10x10x10 cubes all over your project blocking it. You return/delete them, but he persists.

You've had enough. Time to orbit this noob so you can get some building done. But oops--looks like he disabled llPushObject too!

Looks like you're stuck with this jerk until he gets bored or until a Linden logs on.

What's the morale of this story? Griefers will always find a way to be annoying. Taking away our abilities so that griefers can't abuse them will generally accomplish nothing but make our toolset smaller.

If you still think it's necessary to keep the newbie griefers under control, here's my suggestion:

Cap llPushObject()'s effectiveness as a function of how long a person has been a resident of SL.

Newbies do not get the ability to create much force at all, maybe enough to make a trampoline, but certianly not enough to orbit someone.

People who have been here a while earn the privledge of being unrestricted, as they are unlikely to be a griefer by the time they've been here after a couple months.

This system would be a lot less tedious for everyone to manage, as it would work out automatically, without having to set up a system of permissions, dialog guis, allow/deny lists, etc.

Ama is right there are loopholes aplenty. Kex is also correct, there is complexity in coding for consensual pushes.

But SL already has a mechanism for people who like player versus player combat: it is called non-safe or damage-enabled zones. I can opt in or out of whether I wish to subject myself to attack by choosing to enter or not enter such a zone. Moreover, I can remain "damage invulnerable" while in my home or any other place where someone has not enabled damage. Indeed, being "killed" in a damage enabled zone is actually far less inconvenient than being blown off-world by a griefer. If I get "killed" in game I get teleported home, big deal. If I get blown off-world and have to relog, I have wasted time and if I was in the midst of scripting or building, I've just lost my work.

Push-guns and their use is an "exploit" by any definition, if they caused people to gain or lose L$ this would have been fixed in the next patch. But since they merely diminish the SL experience, this exploit just isn't taken very seriously. Which frankly has me kind of baffled. I have seen Liaisons passing out free "anti-push" attachments presumably because dealing with this type of griefer is a major irritation for the Liaisons. I've also been told "yep, that's the second time tonight I've been summoned about this griefer"

And Kex is also quite right that there are many means by which a player who wants to interefere with another player can do so and it would be impossible to prevent all of these without hobbling SL severely. But I've yet to see a form of willful annoyance that is as pernicious as push guns. In my experience the solution is most assuredly not shooting back. I have yet to see a situation where orbiting a griefer has done anything other than escalate the interaction. The griefer is blowing people off-world precisely because they like the reaction and vitually any response tends to encourage that behavior.

Ananda's suggestion that you can just cause llPushObject to have no effect on your avatar seems the simplest. But not having ever used that call, I cannot say if that would not break things. So trampolines won't work if I have that toggled off, but how much time do we really spend on trampolines? I may have to toggle it back on if I want to ride a LindenWorld attraction. Is there some other benevolent use that I've missed? No police (or Liaisons) are needed to enforce the "law" of gravity, the universe just doesn't afford deviation. Popular pressure was all that was needed to get a fix in for "prissy" female avatar sit positions, I know I'm not the only one who cares about this issue. Why the foot dragging? I still cannot accept that this hasn't been fixed because it is believed to be a good thing by LL.

I think a solution to one loophole (the unpushable greifer pushing others) is hinted at in your post....

Make it a land option. A checkbox in about land, or a drop down menu with three options:

Allow push
Limit push
No push

Limit push could be owner/group scripts only or some other form of limitation like a limit on the amount of force applied.

That way, no one on the land can be pushed. I imagine event areas to be no push and personal building property or homes. <shrug> Its the cleanest solution I see.

I really do *not* want a variable push force based on AV age - it would require near constant tweaking of some mechanics which isn't good. Perhaps if it was an on or off feature - less than X days old and very little force, greater than X days old and normal force. Still not sure though.

Kex, your heart is in the right place, but the whole situation and the solution you propose are rather Byzantine. They also unfairly target newbies. What if someone who's been here a long time invites a newbie into melee combat? I did that once with someone I got to sign up for a trial. Under that system I would have had to give him a weapon and then detune my own (by how much exactly? who knows) to make it fair.

If we make push optional, at least griefers can't orbit me. I can't orbit them either, but so what? Even if I do they can come back, just like I can. So we have both sides of the equation in the same balance they were in before, and now I can expect to stay where I am standing no matter what.

Lift tubes are one of the few practical ways of getting to builds above an altitude of 200m, and they require llPushObject. Because of the recent changes to llPushObject, there aren't many of them in use yet (we're waiting for the new behavior to be finalized).

I'm sure there are other uses.

Just to clarify... I proposed a *cap* on the amount of force applicable, not a multiplicative factor. The formula will still work the same, but a min() function will be applied to the requested force and the maximum force that person is allowed.

Besides, if you're going to make llPushObject() an option to completely disable in preferences, nearly everyone will immediately turn it off, effectively making the function deprecated.


Make llPushObject() uncapped for everyone in non-safe territories.

We duelled in several locations in safe territories. And I still think it unfairly targets newbies. I didn't bother anyone when I was new. This would be the SL equivalent of a police officer busting someone for DWB.

sit on a prim dammit, when you work on something you really dont need to stand

i still vote for an opt out system. I honestly don't ever see myself as wanting to recieve a push force, from anyone, or anything. And i should be able to never be bothered with such drivel to begin with. I also don't pushgun griefers myself because that is how many respected, and very frustrated, long time SL'ers end up reported and suspended. If someone is being annoying file a report, send them home, use any of the builtin tools, go beyond them an yer askin to get reported yerself.

Creating a system that prevents 100% usage of llPushobject on potential targets will cause an arms race for a more penultimate micro evading seeker bullet designed to defeat the current shields that defeat full on physics bullets. I.E. stopping llPushObject from pushing you won't stop a swarm of high speed projecticles from pushing you. An object can go from zero to excessive speed (without even using llPushObject) within the confines of a shield (which it can phantom through), so really it's just a matter of preference as to what you want pushing you.

Now if you want a system that turns off pushing entirely, that'd be somewhat akin to disabling physics. Since they just closed the hole whereby collisionless avatars are possible, I doubt they'd ADD something to disable this other aspect of physics on an avatar.

Further, I hate griefers. I hate them. Diediedie.

What's wrong with adding a simple permission like we have for animations? Pop up a dialog asking if we want to allow person X to push us and our objects.