Hello everyone. Today, I just wanted to have a little talk about Monster Maze, an upcoming multiplayer project that has been on the works for little over a month now. What I want to talk about is something potentially serious, and potentially controversial if I end up doing it. But in the end, you guys make the final choice.
Earlier today, grazer pushed out the Data Types Update, allowing us to play around A LOT more with numbers, text, and data. One of those new features is to take the username and id of the player if they are logged into their account. If the user is not logged in, the id will be 0 and the username will be “empty”. This can be useful to track down the users playing multiplayer games, find out who is who. This can make communication better, especially if you are planning on making a chat-box or add emotes, like waving or smiling.
So what is the controversial part? Well, I realized that with the ability to extract a user’s id also comes with the potential to create a ban list. You can literally ban a specific user from playing your multiplayer game by scoping out their id, forcing them to only play the game on their own, or when not logged on. I’m not sure if grazer had thought of this, or if he intended to have this possible. While professional game developers usually add a ban list to ban naughty players from their game, here on Flowlab, things are different. I am currently having a dilemma about whether I should develop such ban list for Monster Maze. So here is where I may need help from the community: you guys.
Yes, a ban list should be created. Thanks to the new update, I plan on having players view each other’s usernames (e.g. if me and @ManiacPumpkin were playing together, we can see who is who by the player username), a quick-chat ability in the lobby, and even rewards exclusive to one user. So if one particular user breaks the rules (for example, cheating or bullying), I can easily identify them and ban them from the game. They won’t be able to bother other users or ruin the fun. It can also discourage other people from breaking the rules too. Since most other game developers also ban naughty players from their multiplayer games, I should do the same to establish order.
No, a ban list should not be created. The issue here is that I don’t want to end up creating ban wars: if I ban someone from my game, they ban me from their game as revenge. And some people are very vengeful, and some users have acted a bit immature at times. Plus, what if I ban someone and they turn out to be innocent? Technology can sometimes mislead us, and we don’t always have solid proof to punish someone. There have been extensive arguments here in the forums a few times, and while they have since been deleted, I still remember them. If I ban a user from my game, they are going to head on over to the forums and complain, sometimes extensively. It may cause chaos to come to the forums just because of a simple punishment due to bad behavior.
So I’m leaving it up to you guys, the readers. Should I use this newfound power to ban naughty users from playing my game, or should I allow everyone freedom to play my game, even if they are bullies or cheaters? The future of this game rests on your shoulders. Order or chaos?
- Yes, users should be banned if they break the rules.
- No, let everyone gain complete freedom.
0 voters
Disclaimers
To clarify: if “yes” wins, users who are banned on the forums are NOT automatically banned from Monster Maze. You’ll only get banned if you break the rules in-game, and not outside the game.
Also @grazer, I want to hear from you, too, if you would like. I am not sure if you had thought about this type of thing being developed in a game, and I want to know if you encourage or discourage such a thing.
And sorry to everyone end this ends up being a terrible question. I just wanted to make sure that my game is bully-free and that cheaters don’t truly prosper, but I also don’t want to create any drama, since Flowlab is a community full of game developers, and I don’t want there to be any extensive arguments about each other getting banned from one another’s games. Hopefully you are able to understand my concerns.