Vion

Simple "have your cake and eat it too" fix (though it might cause those few people too lazy to read instructions some confusion): If container is in an odd numbered tool belt slot, the container activates; in an even numbered slot, the content activates.

I repose my original question: Is it OneTooFree's policy that sociopathic, delinquent, amoral behavior will be allowed by its customers in this entertainment venue? If your response is that we are instituting software/rule fixes, and in the future, and unless something happens to bang up against those rules, it will be allowed, then it is clear OneTooFree's policy is as I stated above -- actions were taken which were unquestionably anti-social and delinquent, and the individuals who took them are still allowed in this venue. Notice that I did not say above "Is it Wurm's policy". This is not a question of game mechanics or even posted game rules. The actions these individual took, once again, were unquestionably, without needing any reference to anything other than a normal code of morals and ethics, sociopathic, delinquent, amoral. Does OneTooFree allow individuals such as this to be its customers? As I stated before, digression into game mechanics and rule language is irrelevant, and masks the fundamental question -- Is it OneTooFree's policy that sociopathic, delinquent, amoral behavior will be allowed by its customers in this entertainment venue? And if it isn't, why are these individuals still playing, and why is OneTooFree allowing GM's, who are supposed to enforce policy, spend their time dithering in endless academic discussions and generalized inaction. If the policy is that OneTooFree is an honorable member of civilized society with appropriate morals and ethics, then it needs to find GMs who will actually enforce its policy. And in case you need me to clarify it yet again -- this post is a question -- a simple, important, question. The answer is "yes" or "no". I expect, if the GM's have any actual sense of what they should be doing, their next post will be a "yes" or a "no" (and if Rolf has to be consulted, get off your duff's and consult him). Any other post by a GM means that the course of obfuscation and wimpiness and unwillingness to behave as moral, ethical members of society continues in the GM community.

Several days have passed since the most recent events which initiated these threads, and I think we can draw some conclusions. As no action has been taken against the three individuals who engaged in the outrageous conduct, it is clear that OneTooFree's policy is that sociopathic, delinquent, amoral behavior will be allowed by its customers, regardless of the fact that it damages the value of the Wurm product for all other players, and, much worse, when this kind of behavior is not met with the firmest of rejections in civilized society, the individuals "learn" the lesson that it is acceptable. I sure hope I don't live in the same real world community as Cooka, Jotoha and Dakilleux, and I sympathize with those who do, because these individuals are now that much more conditioned to behave in a sociopathic manner. (And any of you who think that the experiences gained in an online environment have no influence on one's non-online activity, let me assure you, you are living in a very dangerous and naive dreamworld.) I hope Rolf feels comfortable with the fact that his lack of a firm policy of no tolerance for this kind of behavior is likely to have negative effects not just to the Wurm community, but to civilized society as a whole. But, of course, we all know that the operators of an entertainment venue have no history of rejecting sociopathic, delinquent behavior. If you go into a nightclub, and proceed to start spilling the drinks of all the folks around you, no proprietor would dream of tossing you out (after all, there isn't a sign with meter high lettering on the wall saying it is against the rules to deliberately spill other people's drinks). Or if you act similarly in a movie theater, its OK -- its the fault of the other patrons for having an expectation that the other theater goers might choose to confine themselves to morally acceptable behavior. Indeed, as Bellona so clearly points out, the patrons who allow themselves to be victimized by the sociopaths are morally wrong because... Actually, Bellona's accusation against Heart is an shocking case of libel. To state another individual is "a guilty party" -- i.e., morally in the wrong -- with absolutely no basis whatsoever is an outrageous, offensive attack on her character, and I'm appalled by the fact that Bellona hasn't been dealt with severely by OneTooFree. This not to suggest that should OneTooFree, like all other operators of entertainment venues, by adopting and enforcing a no tolerance policy, should, in some way, expect to rehabilitate or fix such individuals; by the same token, no in-game system can either. These are seriously damaged people, and the best thing most of us -- and, especially entertainment venue operators -- can do is make sure we deny them access to an environment where they can exercise their pathological behavior, as such further conditions them to use that behavior. And, while improving the rule set in Wurm does make Wurm a less attractive place for these individuals, one can never, at the level of computer enforced logic, remove all opportunity for unacceptable behavior. OneTooFree tacitly acknowledges this by having GM's -- but these GM's must act. Note, by the way, Dakilleux's attempt at at an apology: he says "I didn't know the consequences of the behavior." Like any delinquent, it should be clear what he will do next -- look for a way to act sociopathically where he won't be exposed to consequences. And he's a smart kid -- he will find such ways. (He also tried to say in his post he didn't know it was wrong -- in fact, while he was in the middle of his destructive escapade he made a very offensive remark which clearly acknowledged he knew what he was doing was morally wrong.) And for the others of you who choose to discuss this matter as merely some objective analysis of the effectiveness of some computer based rule sets, and fail to see this is an issue about ethics and morals, and how we and OneTooFree should be responding to grievous moral transgressions, I am seriously concerned that your ethical and moral development is far below what is reasonable in a civilized society. To, as several writers have done, in any way, reduce, or even distract the discussion from the central issue of the seriousness and the unacceptability of the behavior of these individuals by minor concerns such as Heart's honest mistake of forgetting to lock her gate demonstrates a serious lack of ethics and morality. Responsible, civilized, ethical, moral people do not tolerate or accept this kind of behavior, nor allow appropriate responses to be mitigated by irrelevant issues. And I can't imagine a more irrelevant issue regarding how we should react to these individuals than the state of Heart's fence gate. And finally, let us please stop using euphemisms which tend to mask the seriousness of what is really happening. "Griefing" is such a nice 21st century online word -- but it is a euphemism for sociopathic, delinquent, amoral behavior. And to use the euphemism rather that words which clearly, and unequivocally expose the true seriousness of the matter, is to be sticking your head in the sand. (Oh, and although I shouldn't have to say this, unfortunately I do -- GM's, you have a moral obligation to be sure the text of this post is passed on to Rolf.)

Re Othob: Actually, Othob, you are, at least partially, wrong again. The minimum cost to purchase a deed is 2s 42c with a minimum maintenance of 1s per month with seven months of pre-paid maintenance. I ask, is it a positive, honorable business practice that requires one to pre-pay 7 months in advance? Should we be asking people to buy more than they need? Would any substantial amount of players, on a long term basis, be satisfied with a 100 (or fewer) tile tract as their primary base, knowing that it could, at any time, undergo forced disbandment, has no token, spawn point, decay benefits, or fellow villagers? And for those that would, would they be willing to pay for a full deed? Or isn't it more likely they would not remain premium players? One can justify the 1s minimum maintenance on a deed as the cost for the token and spawn point. And doing so quickly reinforces the result that mini deeds remain more expensive than deeds in any reasonable apples to apples, tile to tile comparison -- deeds simply also come with a larger minimum purchase size and more features you have to pay for. Your insistence on saying mini-deeds are cheaper absolutely ignores the facts of what is included in the respective packages, and, is, consequently, completely misleading. And you continue to largely ignore are my comments -- and I think they are well based -- that the vast majority of mini-deed usage will be in addition to deed purchases, not instead of. The additional benefits, larger sizes, and lower per tile costs offered by regular deeds will be required by most folk. And again (and I'm sure you are not this petty), it is real easy to conclude that your misleading comments and insistence on framing this issue solely in terms of what is the total amount of money one has to pay (and then, doing so while ignoring thoughts which argue against your simplistic conclusions in that regard) stem from an attitude of "heck, I suffered through Wurm without these things -- you want to make it so people paid less than I did -- no way!! -- i paid what I did, everyone else should too! Future players shouldn't have thing better!" The benefit is that marauding, sociopathic players who play Wurm for the sole pleasure of causing destruction to the creations of other folk would be thwarted. And, there is, IMO, justification to the position that full deed benefits should only be available in a minimum sized package such as is now the case. I believe the mini-deed concept is primarily a mechanism for folk to protect small, off-deed land developments, such as a port facility or some additional pasture space, where doing so with an additional full deed or a significant deed size expansion is either impractical or excessively expensive.

In my response, Othob, I laid out the arithmetic that established that, priced per my suggested values, on a tile per tile basis, mini-deeds are, in fact, considerably more expensive than deeds. Please, Othob, take a few seconds and read and try to comprehend what others say in their posts, before you waste everyone's time by repeating demonstrably wrong assertions. And please use some imagination -- there are many, many situations where the ability to define and protect a small piece of additional land is a useful extension to the basic deed concept. My imagination, at any rate, tells me that, except for new players, who might try out a mini-deed for a while before moving up to a full deed, the vast majority of users to this feature would be villagers doing something in addition to their deed for which another deed is massive overkill. I trust this isn't the case, but you do realize that the tone of your posts almost sounds like you have some, irrational, intolerant, instinctual aversion to the possibility that some players might end up with a useful piece of "owned" land having paid less total money than you did. OK -- I see 3 situations: A) A mini-deed interferes with someone's desire to place a deed. Simple solution -- placing a deed forces the disbandment of any mini-deeds within its perimeter. The mechanics for this can get a little detailed, the worst of which might be that if the mini-deed occupies any tiles within the requested deed area (as opposed to the perimeter) the actual deed formation would be delayed 72 (48?) hours pending notification of the deed owner to give him/her an opportunity to come and recover his/her possessions. At the end of the waiting period, the mini-deed would automatically disband; if the mini-deed owners possessions could be put aside and held for him/her for, say, 14 days after an automatic disbandment, all the better. If the mini-deed only affects perimeter tiles, the deed can be placed with no delay; the mini-deed ownr will be notified an an automatic disbandment will occur after the same waiting period. Disbandments caused by deed placements will result in, say, 50% of the placement cost being returned to the deed owner. Mini-deeds interfere with reasonable access or useful projects. GM's, on presentation of a reasonable explanation, would have the power to declare eminent domain over any mini-deed. In such cases, an automatic disbandment would occur after short waiting period, with all of the mini-deed owner's placement costs being refunded. If, however, the GM decides that the mini-deed was placed solely to harass, the GM can deny the placement cost refund. In practical terms, this is really the same solution as is now used when houses or fences are used to block access or otherwise interfere. The "eminent domain" declaration is somewhat more official, and, given the refund, a more graceful situation. The key point, however, is that, mini-deeds always lose if there is any reasonable case for their removal. In short, as with deeds above, mini-deeds are always second-class citizens. C) As an exploit to lower the cost of protected land. Imagine 2 deeds, each with a size 6 perimeter. They are aligned and placed so that their perimeters touch each other. Now, placing a 12 tile mini-deed at each end of the abutting perimeters and fencing it, as well as fencing the deeds, will now result in the entire abutting perimeter area being fully protected. (If the deeds are size 15, then 348 tiles can be protected for the cost of 24 tiles of mini-deed.) Although this is annoying, philosophically I'm not too concerned. After all, these are perimeter tiles, so they had protections already against some forms of use by others. The primary gain is protection from the abusive behavior of sociopathic players. Given that Freedom is a commercial PvE entertainment venue, one would ideally expect that the venue itself (i.e., OneTooFree) would have policies forbidding sociopathic behavior (as is the case in any real world commercial entertainment venue, such as a night club, sports facility, etc., and, indeed, civilized society as a whole). So, the reduction of real world costs to obtain what one would expect is automatic in any civilized venture (but, in the case of an MMO, is understandably difficult) is not too serious, IMO.

The core of this idea is decidedly NOT, Othol, that "deeds are too expensive to buy". Perhaps you might have done a little checking and found out that I, indeed, own a size 10 (21x21) deed. The core of this idea is that there are needs to protect SMALL tracts of additional land outside the deed. I see this frequently -- Ols's reply indicated one legitimate need (a port facility), and the recent griefing complaints are from deed owners using some additional land on the perimeters of their deed for additional pasture or farmland. Perhaps if you had taken the time to read the post carefully, you would have noticed my statement that the specific numbers were only suggestions, and if you felt that the mini-deed concept is too inexpensive, you might have politely suggested that perhaps somewhat larger numbers might be better, rather than making completely baseless assumptions about my motives. (However, given that none of the fees are refundable on disbandment, and that the per tile costs are higher than regular deeds, and the lack of decay and other benefits, I think the cost difference is not so large as you imply. In fact, under my numbers, placing 5 100 tile mini-deeds would cost about 3s more than a size 11 deed which yields 529 deed tiles plus 560 perimeter tiles, and the mini-deed maintenance cost would be higher, with fewer overall benefits.) 500 tiles still too high for you? Fine -- perhaps you might read my original comment again ("all values below are, of course, only suggested") and politely suggest in return that instead of a limitation of 5 per player, maybe 3, or even 2 would be more suitable. And every player claiming an additional 300 tiles is going overcrowd Freedom? Sounds a bit alarmist to me, especially when I would expect the vast majority of the mini-deeds would be applied to land usage that is happening now, outside of deeds (and provides no revenue to OneTooFree). And, although I should think this was obvious, mini-deeds of course would be restricted to premium players should non-premiums be allowed on Freedom. And, by the way, Othob, I still have my referral -- and I don't care how much you offer -- you ain't getting it! (And, Othob, if you really must know "the core of this idea" you might look in the standard place where writers set forth that information -- the opening paragraph. Or did you choose to disrespect me by deciding that I was not making a truthful statement of my purposes?)

To clarify, ownership of mini-deeds would be completely allowable to deed-holders and villagers. While some folk may use the system as an alternative to deed placement or village membership, my primary reason for suggesting this is to define and protect off-deed extensions and operations, such as the port facility Ols would like to protect. And, as Urman suggests, it does provide a short term functionality if desired, but there is nothing limiting it to short term usage. My primary reason to limit fee pre-payment to 30-45 days is to require owners to, with some frequency, actually physically visit and attend to their mini-deeds, thus hopefully causing unused ones to quickly and automatically disband and decay.

While I strongly believe the recent sociopathic activity on Freedom represent griefing and harassment at its worst, I recognize that game management efforts (e.g., OneTooFree policies and volunteer GM activities) will be unable to eliminate this. Although it is often ineffective to address real-world offensive and disfunctional behavior with in-game mechanics, this may be an exception. Moreover, I think the following idea provides attractive additional playing options, has positive environmental effects, and enhances Rolf's business model. (I believe the costs I'm suggesting for those who wish to take advantage of this feature are very modest, but return benefits well worth the expense.) Mini-Deeds for the Freedom Server!! These are small deed like tracts (all values below are, of course, only suggested), limited to 100 or less tiles, and 12 or smaller length and width. Unlike deeds, they have no guards, no perimeter, no decay reduction effects, no token, no spawn point, no no-fuel automatic lighting. Individually owned. (This is a "walk before we run" point; long term this could be extended to allow village ownership. Also, long term, someone please come up with a better name than "mini-deed" -- it sucks, but I can't think of a better one at the moment!) Activities on mini-deed tiles are divided into 3 groups (lists below are not intended to be complete): Owner only: Build houses and fences, demolish, install locks, lockpick, terraform(?) Guests (managed like guests on a house writ): Most other activities, terraform(?) Everyone: Traverse (if borders not fenced or otherwise blocked), lead animals, take water from wells and fountains, clay, peat and tar digging (or, if coding that is a significant effort, either disallowing placement on such tiles, or, establishing a policy that mini-deeds which inhibit public access to such resources shall be removed by GM's.) Mini-deeds have a monthly per tile fee. This fee - Cannot be paid for more than 30-45 days in advance - Can only be paid by the owner while physically on the mini-deed. If maintenance runs out, or the owner disbands, houses are destroyed, locks unlocked, and all items on the track are set for accelerated decay. Mini-deeds may not be placed on tiles with existing houses (unless writ in possession) or on tiles included in the perimeter of a deed, except by the mayor or an individual with permission to alter that deed. Mini-deeds which block reasonable public travel routes or access to other player deeds and mini-deeds should be considered griefing and removable by GM's. Hopefully this won't be necessary, but there could be a limit of, say, 5 mini-deeds per character imposed. And, no need to pollute the event log with mini-deed placement and disbandment messages. Mechanics: From a trader, one buys a mini-deed kit, which consists of 2 markers. Suggested cost: 15-20 copper. The user drops the markers on the opposite corners of the tract the user wishes to mini-deed. A procedure similar to a deed survey comes up -- the placement is verified, the user is presented with costs and an ability to accept or reject. Suggested cost: 300 iron per tile, with the first 10 covered by the kit purchase price. Upon placement, the owner receives a writ. The owner then, and periodically, over the future, can activate the writ, click on any tile in the tract and pre-pay maintenance. The first 5 days maintenance are covered when the mini-deed is placed. I suggest the ongoing cost to be 25 or 30 per tile per month. Mini-deed tracts might be named, but, to minimize coding effort, can be uniquely identified by a system provided number. When players examine a tile within a mini-deed, they would be informed (similar to the "within deed perimeter" message) that the tile is "part of mini-deed tract nnnnn owned by xxxx". Mini-deeds could be traded by trading the writ; upon doing so the guest permission list would be cleared. On disbanding, unused pre-paid maintenance could be recovered, but the entire kit cost and placement fee is lost. Clearly this is a feature useful perhaps only on Freedom, and it may be best to implement it there only. It provides an affordable means to protect smaller off-deed tracts, but insures that only actively used tracts are protected. It also provided an alternative to deeds which some players might find useful, while, I think Rolf should find this entirely consistent with his business model. And, I wouldn't be surprised that the development effort to add this feature is as extensive as it might seem at first blush.

Amazing how misinformed many Americans are -- note that the Boston Tea Party was a protest against the repeal of the tax on tea by parliament. By repealing the tea tax, parliament favored British based Indian plantation owners and shipping companies, at the expense of the New England furniture and fur industries, the tobacco plantations in the southern colonies, and the shipping companies which handled these goods, all of which tended to be owned by colonists, who had no representation in London. Contrary to the assertions of the so-called "Tea Party movement", the colonists fully understood and supported the existence of taxes sufficient to support a beneficial government; they simply felt that it was a fundamental right to have a say in how those taxes were decided.

Except for the thumb control, scroll bars are completely non-functional in the wurm client. Neither arrow, or the bar itself, work. This is true on Macs and PCs. While nifty new client features are nice, the client would be a whole lot more friendly, imo, if GUI 101 functionality was implemented first.

I think we've overdone the decay for usable scrap items (wood and rags). Because the ql is so low on these, keeping any kind of quantity on hand is now difficult. Scrap wood I created yesterday is now at 99% decay. In short, if I happen to go a couple days without needing to do any carpentry, it seems kind of silly that I should have to go out and cut down a tree if I want to do a little cooking, especially if 3 or 4 days ago I created a substantial amount of firewood. And, with respect to rags, the problem which the decay increase fixes is, in fact, largely fixed by making combined rag piles usable for first aid. Is there really a need for a double fix now, when we will need to do much more cotton work in order to have a rag supply?

• Full scroll bar functionality: clicking in arrows moves one line, clicking in bar outside the thumb moves list a "page". (Assuming this isn't a deficiency in the Mac java engine and outside your control.) • Option to "pin" right click menus — e.g., they would contain a menu item "pin" which converts them into floating dialog windows, remaining present even after the user makes a selection, and dismiss-able through normal window close action. Thus, one can make multiple actions on an object without needing an additional right-clicks for each action. • Allow the health/food/drink bar group to be re-positioned. • Make logs and inventories true independent windows distinct from the main window. Just because Microsoft thinks the "s" in Windows is silent doesn't mean you too need to discard the single most user-empowering aspect of the PARC GUI model.

Moreover, if it appears anything like jumping in other games, it is extremely distracting and annoying to other folk. I really don't need to have to suffer immature people trying to draw attention to themselves with no consideration for others around them.

This is very simple for me -- the day I'm exposed to PvP in Wurm is my last day as a paying customer. The day the "encouragements" to PvP, or the benefits from engaging in PvP activity become too limiting for non-PvP play is my last day as a paying customer.