free accounts and.........

i have noticed a big increase in griefing and just over all mayhem of late......and was wondering ?, if you think it could have anything to do with free accounts?..
Eg: someone comes in world on a free account , says to themselves wow! this is ok. !.
decides they can do this and that and who cares if they get banned?..... as they can go back to there other online game, they were just here because it was free...so who cares! thus making it harder for the new player on a free account that wants to be here!
i would like to hear your thoughts on this.

i think this has been a 25 page thread before but .. free accounts dont apply to users that exist, which means you need a new credit card, and probally a new billing address. which neither are exactly hard (ive got 2 addresses now and get a stack of credit card offers a month) but thats going out of alot of simple minded turd greifers way.

And the (sry laughing)hardcore wannabee razor 1911's are going to get in wether its free or not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_1911

also that aught to be a lesson in copyright law, pirate crap since 1985 and you will serve 18 months (snicker) enventho the founder eventually got 50 months and 3 years of probie

I've noticed an increase in griefing as well, since around September, which I believe coincides with the free offerings.

I think paying for SL prevented a lot of people from signing up, and unfortunately some of those were griefers. I'm sure for every griefer that joined, there were plenty of great people that joined as well.

I guess we just take the good with the bad, I just wish LL dealt with the bad in a more timely and effective manner.

There has been a large increase from Griefter due to the free accounts.....Are we going to see a END to the "Griefer FREE ACCOUNTS" Soon? I sure hope so.

I think Guild Wars had one thing right. Provide a newbie world for people to look around. It's just like the real game only smaller.
Let them "graduate" to the main world where they can buy land. And have more building options or script options.

In Guildwars its "more armor" but same point.
I know the help island is there but its way to easy to bypass. Nobody there hardly for one thing.
Maybe let there be a few hours of play in that world before they can tp to the real SL?
Maybe have them do a few tasks first so they learn what is what? Like learning shooting people is bad in the wrong area's.
GW and a number of other games do similar things as that.
And it works.

The people in the main world are not asking newbie questions because they learned it all in the newbie world.

Is that what Help island was about? It seems most new people just jump into the main world anymore and shoot people. Not knowing they get abuse reports on them.
I dunno, just my thoughts.

You know sean its post like this that makes me believe that there are some hope left in the sl brain power of its users.

Problem is way too many newbies leaving Help Island ill prepared. And Many HI helpers are just padding themselves on the back and say "I am doing a great job bla bla bla" Ok there are a few good helpers But problems is egos are ruling HI and the newbies are not getting the attention they should be getting. I might be kicking the groups i am with but these days I see more ill prepared newbies then EVER BEFORE. If Greeters and Mentors spent more time in the main grid then sitting in HI they would see my point. Ok I going to gets flammed to hell on this but FACTS ARE JUST FACTS.

Well it isn't my idea. It's just what I have seen in other games that works.

I understand why LL wants to get people in the game with the free accounts, but since turning "Basic" accounts into "Free" accounts they've nerfed Basics down over and over again.

I think they need to have separate "Free" and "Basic" accounts, and put "Basic" back where it was early last year, or have the free accounts distributed through some kind of referral service from paid accounts, with a limit on the number of referrals a paid account can make a month.

Its your throught about HI
Well Done

Yep. We do need a solution to Day One Greifers. Like a 'noob' tag or a rule that states if you or an item get more then five ars within your first five days, you're suspended.

well... its interesting to say the least! lol..the idea of what thoses others games have, could work here...educating the noob better,has to be a priority i would think. and as far as the ones that dont care maybe have a 30 day thingy and if you have an Ar against you ....... your out! or some kind of penalty
its a very touchy subject! as you want the free accounts here hoping they will contribute and get a premium account..... but we could do without the other types lol.

i just tough about this cause of what happened today. Not willing to hijack the thread or anythin, well i was helping a friend about a body shape and a few guys started coming around, being quite rude talking and provocative, so before the situation get out of hand i blocked scripts on the land, good idea considering the guys where starting rezzing random stuffs around.

I just held myself to make a freeze eject ban til they finally left.

Well maybe its monday but i never met so many tards in a single day.

I hope I don't write a boring book here but I have a feeling I will. Sorry lol
I just thought I would explain it a bit more clearly how it works in something like GW compared to SL.
Since it might actually be useful I guess or something.

Anyway, yeah the abuse reports happen in games like GW. But they don't kick out a player too much.
Unless it is for stuff like a racist comment or something of that sort.
Grieving in that game edges more along the lines of verbal abuse if any happens at all.
They are kids for the most part anyway so that probably says something. Heh

In GW the concepts in the small newbie world is exactly the same as the main world/grid.
There are towns, land, places to go and see, things to do, people hanging out.
There also isn't as much of the (click here for info) stuff we have in HI now.
(boring, who reads all that stuff?) Heh.

Again, in GW you simply can not go into the main grid until you complete a few quests. The world is still free and open. Players get to try things out on their own without much risk in the tutorial world.
Yet at the same time it does have spots to explain things. It's a balance of game play and teaching. And usualy it is adapted into a quest.

But that is for a storyline based system.
That doesn't mean SL can't have a task or two in the HI area.
In other words, it's a simple herding system.

Eventually they finish all the right quests and by then they know whats going on.
After that they get the option to merge into the main world.
(The story line takes them into a battle that leads there.)

So SL may not use a storyline system, but they could put in a set of tasks like. (wear this outfit, check this box that says "No Random Shooting", or whatever.
Wichever process SL could use doesn't matter so much.
Point is the people will know better before they get into the main grid.

It wouldn't be hard to implement that into SL's system is my point.
In fact it just seems natural.
Everyone knows what a Job is, or a Task. It's not like it would be some forign concept to people who don't play other games. And it would eliminate the frustration for some mentors.
In fact maybe PAY them to do these tasks. That could be how they get their starting money. So they don't spend it all on that new freebie poo gun before realizing a few things.

As far as the HI world goes. There is already shops and a sandbox from what I saw. So it just needs a little larger size and some "bottle neck" to keep people there for the learning process.

I thought maybe actually have an obvious place in the HI where they could get a starter gun, starter clothing (that is not in their inventory already), or some other things to help them get each concept in SL.

The gun would actually do no harm when they start firing at people. No push scripts. But it could be scripted to shoot.
Except as soon as a bullet hits someone else the gun freezes firing. The bullet could just kill itself and send an IM message to the shooter saying something along the lines of "NO NO NO! And this is why. "

And if they shoot a lot. They get spamed that message over and over.
So any claim that they "didn't see it" would be a bunch of bull.

Maybe have the gun throw up an image that says no shooting people except in combat zones.
I dunno. Anything like that could work.
On top of that the mentors are there to explain the way things work anyway.

Those who could care less about guns probably won't pick that thing up in the first place. So we don't really need to worry about those people being a problem.

Maybe have one of those manditory tasks to teach them shooting people is bad in most areas.
And something that tells them "Watch out for freebie sellers."
And "Don't walk around naked in PG areas please." Etc.

In any case, this way, if someone starts shooting at random in the main grid, everyone knows that person was told about it.
They can not get into the main grid without knowing that fact.
That might even make an AR's even more effective in our main grid maybe.
There is less of an excuse.

So the only real "newbie" questions that will come up in the main grid are people who are simply new to that particular area.
That makes a question more along the lines of "Can I have a tp".
And much less of "How do I put my shirt back on?"
And maybe even less of the "Can I have free money?"

In GW that is pretty much taken out of the main area so we are not bothered by extream newbieness.

In other words, it's just a simple herding system.
Everyone knows where the new people are and that they can not come blasting people with some cool laser poo gun without knowing better.

Also I would think there would be a few other benifits to having that system adapted in SL. The WA crowd might actually be people just hanging out or meeting up. (I think people will always use it for that reason at least.) But nobody who is wanting to scam people will be there waiting to pick on newbies anymore.

The HI already blocks players from coming back to mess with new people.
So no scaming them should happen at all. It would be both for their benifit and ours.

The mentors in SL of course could go back to help. But those are people who actually want to help. I think.
They can at least lose the position if they abuse their job of course. Unlike GW. So SL has that part down.

Also I would guess the Mentors could use the land in the tutorial world to make it larger? Maybe expand it or have the lindens make a preset idea of the main grid?

In GW everything is preset. And it just adapts to a storyline.
So SL would need to have some other basis for the tutorial grid in order to make it larger.
They have a Teen grid, so why not.

And yeah people could use Alts to come back but who would pay $9.95 for an alt to do that. And then have them flagged if they keep their character in the HI too long. Or give mentors the ability to force them into the main grid if they are messing with newbies.
Scaming them or what have you would not be as common place at least.

Anyway I doubt that setup will be used any time soon.
Probably because it seems like a limiting system to people.
The point is to make it feel like the main world thou.
Again it works in GW's Even thou I hate that game. (For totally different reasons) Heh

Geez! Sean! lol. if they just took a bit of what you said!. it would make a "whole world" of difference lol.! : ). and i like the idea that we wouldnt get asked anymore about "how to put on a shirt ". hehehe!...but rather how can i texture this or how can i do an alpha channel. And for the noob! it would be alot more fun! i would think : )

It is much simpler than that since there is now the option of providing a CC# or a cell phone #. All that is needed is access to a cellphone, any cellphone, for a few minutes. After picking off the text code sent to the cell phone, it is no longer required. It is not necessary to provide a credit card as long the account is kept basic. My guess is that LL went to this method to get people who are reluctant to provide a CC# to give SL a try.

Hehe

First off, $10 is a small price to pay to annoy the hell out of people for fun (especially if you can put it on Dad's credit card from college 2,000 miles from home), but I'll let that go and consider griefers pennyless and cheap.

Griefing doesn't occur because they don't know that they aren't supposed to blast people, harrass people or stalk people.

SL is not too complicated for people to learn without a herding system, which is a turn off for some people who come to SL for the tools it offers over and above other MMOGs.

Lots more accounts with the same proportion of griefers = lots more griefers. I don't think anyone has statistics to indicate the growth rate of griefers in world is higher than that of non-griefers. If you have these figures, please share.

Tutorials are fine. Forced tutorials are not.

I don't mean to put down any of these ideas, there is merit here, but...
1) Griefers will not be eliminated through education - many are very well acquainted with gaming already.
2) There are so many tools for n00bs already and hamstringing people who don't need the tutorials by forcing them through an indoctrination feels icky.

I agree with Gabe.

coco

Of course it doesn't get rid of the of real grief problems. But we at least know its not because they are new. Thats all it provides is a filter.

And forced tutorials are not fun unless they are made to be. That is all in how well they get adapted into the world around them.
Also its just an opinion on each person. Not everyone will like it but it isn't a difficult task to get over.
Especilly if they are there for the tools.
Compared to the alterative of dealing with newbies while trying to work with tools in the main grid? I'd personally rather click a few buttons and learn a few steps to keep the newbiness out of my hair from that point on.

Anyway the tools are there for those who want them.
The smaller newbie world has everything except maybe that push script. Even if it did have it active. They at least shoot other newbies and not Us. And learn it is not good at the same time.
Everything there is just like the Main world. Only smaller. It's not a mirror image. But the concepts and ability is all there. They are not missing anything. Except the ability to shoot us older members on purpose.

In any case, it does work in other games, and they use it for that reason.
GW could take a few other lessons from SL thou thats for sure.