I'm not hard of hearing, I'm just ignoring you...

A closed beta like the one we're currently enjoying is great because you know the Lindens have taken care in selecting participants based on their knowledge and love of 3D environments, multiplayer games, and all that good stuff. We're all here because we care, dammit, and so the caliber of the current SL community is much higher, I think, than almost any other online community out there.

Of course, it'd be wonderful if that level of caring stayed the same as the game goes public, but that's never the case. Where there's a public online environment, there's an immature griefer just waiting to make merry by making your life miserable. Players who exist solely to give others grief can sometimes be more thorough in their software testing than beta testers. :) I have faith in the Lindens' ability to identify and quash exploits and methods of harassment, so I know there's going to be an Ignore command implemented at some point. I suggest that the ability to ignore doesn't stop at just blocking chat text from a player.

I hope it'd be easy to include sounds and physics in the Ignore function. A few of us, myself included, are currently having a heck of a lot of fun uploading wacky sounds and playing them a lot. But that kind of ability can easily be abused. (Someone tonight in the Welcome Area had a lot of fart sounds playing, f'rinstance, and I know that if I keep playing "Someone get this freakin' duck away from me!" enough people are gonna start throwing ducks at me...) The ability to identify where a sound's coming from and mute the source would be real helpful in keeping annoyance levels down. That way even objects that are broadcasting sounds can be ignored if need be. Negatively rating a player can only go so far -- and honestly, the idea of giving someone a negative rating feels to me like something that should only be done when all else fails. Kind of like a last big "up yours!" to someone. Being as nonconfrontational as one should get, I always opt for a more passive approach to lessening the grief caused by others.

You've probably also noticed folks bumping into you and sometimes dragging you around for a few steps. I've had some pretty bad landings in the Welcome Area and have even taken a few newbies out on occasion. The ability to render a player intangible to you might lessen the appeal of crowding around someone and nudging them into water or into danger (one of the best EverQuest revenge stories I heard of involved a group of players levitating a griefer who was AFK in the Bazaar for an entire evening and then nudging him into the PVP arena so they could kill him. That's why you can't levitate in the Bazaar anymore.) I'm not too sure if this kind of harassment block would be necessary or even desired in the Outlands, though.

Anyway, those are just a few ideas I discussed with others in-game tonight. I am really growing to love the Second Life world, and I have faith in the Lindens to help keep the harassment and grief-players to a minimum.

Ya - I hate to say it too, but after 5 years of online games and worlds, Im pretty sure an Ignore function will have to come sooner or later. Sad but true as the population grows and the oversight of possible Lindens online is spread out to far to keep an eye on things.

Ignore is on the list for a february release... hang in there.

We will have a great set of muting and other functions aimed at dealing with users you don't want to hear from - we agree this is #1 priority.

Additionally, there will be an abuse reporter that will automatically take screenshots and post information to us.

yes ignore will be great although I have to say at this point I have no use or need for it but by all means I surely have used it in EQ/Daoc and other games..... the note on negetive rateing really wont help much since they can just turn around and rate you negetive as well and lets face it most of us have enough possitive rateing that we dont recieve our due in pay for it anyways at this point perhaps that will be differant in the live version <no clue>
but i also would agree on the mute deal , you can ignore someone in particular and they make there own midi file and format it for SL and put it in a little mouse and have it call <your name here> an Idiot or worse all day long .... that would suck badly IMHO...just my 2 coppers worth



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Was looking best were to put this thread and pulled up this ancient one. =0) btw where is Cambridge I sure miss him!!

Right now mute only blocks regular chat, maybe it should block IMs as well?

When you mute someone it puts a (mute) sign over their av, do you think it would be useful if when you mute someone it will display a message on their end as well?

Nah, the best point of ignore or mute is that they don't know about. If they get a message about it, it's usually seen as an invitation to torment you in any way they can.

Ama, I agree with you 1000% on that.

I'm also worried about this game going public. Just as it has it's own economy, it may also need it's own law enforcement. Irresponsible players can do more damage than can be blocked by the ignore command. Hopefully the software requirements and subcription fee will sort out many of these future virtual vandals. The ignore and report abuse commands are very useful, but hopefully not needed. If you're nudged into a dangerous situation, you can teleport out. Linden Labs is doing a great job of creating Controlled Chaos.

As for bumping into people, I think it's fun. It's a reason to say "oh, excuse me". And being polite gets you good ratings.

I just wish the volume levels could be restricted a little better.

For example, I've encountered a few people who very innocently upload their favourite music clips to play while they're hanging out or whatever, and at the time might have their speaker volume turned down a little, so naturally they turn up the volume of the in-game object/sound..

Anyway.. to cut a long story short, I'm always hearing random music half way across the world because someone accidentally set their object's volume to 10 or something silly.

Which is cool, you know, I do love music... but not the same track every 5 minutes playing essentially at full volume while I'm trying to patiently model a geodesic dome by hand. haha. =D


So yeah.. I think the max volume you should ever be able to use is 1.0. And if you really wanted to make a sound travel further than that (and it's usually just for ambient noises anyway), then you'd just have to make another object at 1.0 set further away. I dunno.


I see a HUGE potential problem in griefers picking the most obnoxious sound effect they can find (like some really high pitched, distorted wailing noise), cranking it to some ridiculous volume, and placing copies of them on all the different sims. That would definitely, as they say, "suck".

Well we do have the "Mute" Feature, which essentially plays a similar role. I have not used to it in excess, I only have one individual on "mute." But, like you, I can see them speak on other channels however, like group. So if this would erradicate them altogether, an ignore would be a welcome addition.

wow what's with digging up posts from january?!

sheesh...

Exactly Dave.

Phaylen and everyone joining recently: The mute feature is new since this was first posted. The bump was a request for it to also block IMs I believe, or add another feature that does block IMs. I would hope it also blocks text and/or sounds from objects owned by a muted person, but I dunno if that is the case.

Sorry if posting on an old thread was a bad idea I thought it was better to continue on one the same topic rather then start a new one. I thought I picked an OK one to continue on (I had did a search on the topic) but I guess not. =0)

*walks on egg shells*

The current muting behavior (v0.5) is to mute both chat and IM from the muted person, but not chat from objects owned by that person.

We will work on adding that last feature as soon as we can, it turns out to be a bit tougher. But in the plan.

Currently IMs are not muted, unless theres a bug.

Steller and I were testing with ignore last night (0.5.0) and she put me on ignore and was still getting my ims.

Also, I DO think that the other person should get the message that they are on ignore. I feel that if the person knows that they are being ignored via the game, it sends a good message. This way they will know they are being ignored and not just a nonresponse from the victim.


Maybe it should be an option, whether to let one know they are being ignored or not. Maybe that is alot of work for Linden developers...

fen-

People that can be reasoned with, that can handle criticism, or are reasonable at all them selves, do not end up on my ignore/mute list. Because I can work past whatever it is with them. The people on my ignore/mute list are the ones with whom putting them on such a list is the only way to avoid the trouble they cause me. Letting them know that their trouble is no longer working on me will not make them say "oh well, I will move on". It will make them say "oh he wants to play hard eh? Lets find what other ways I can annoy this person". And that is not the attention I want.

And besides, anyone who cares will figure out sooner or later they are on an ignore list. I would just much rather it was later.

The reason that I asked Steller to test this with me is because I had imed someone and they had not responded. I also tried to fly to the avatar and when I clicked fly all I got was the noise "boink".

Not that I would have ever believed that I was on this particular person's ignore list, but I began wondering....

Well something else was screwed up somewhere, which is why I could not communicate.

So in this case, one can understand the thought that if there was some misunderstanding, someone could be put on someone else's ignore list and not know why. And maybe want to find out why, correct the misunderstanding or fix the problem.

Personally, I would prefer for those who are on my ignore list, which at this time is 0, to know they are there. And there is the thought that if someone is being so obniouxous that they do end up on someone's ignore list, maybe this would spark some sort of thought as to cut it out. And maybe they would say well I will leave them alone now.

Maybe, maybe not, everyone is different, every situation is different, and people can change...

fen-