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Attenia

Question about game rules

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Does anyone know if there is currently any rule that makes it illegal for players to release branded animals into the wild?

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Why would there be? I have done it before.............. The only thing is branded animals cannot be lead by anyone so basically they roam around till they are killed or die. Don't think you can unbrand an animal before releasing though

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Awesome, that's good to know! As long as I'm not breaking rules or committing bannable offenses, I'm happy :)

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Branding is designed to allow management of creatures that you wish to keep. If you are releasing them into the wild, then I'm not exactly sure why you are branding them.

 

Branded creatures cannot be attacked, which would clearly open up a huge potential griefing issue if an aggressive animal attacked a player and could not be attacked back, which would likely fall into the "play nice or we will rip your heart out" rule and result in a ban.

 

Creatures in wurm are not meant to be protected, I understand you care for the ones on your deed, which is the way of protecting them, if you release them into the wild then you have to accept that other people have the right to hunt them. If you cannot come to terms with that, perhaps not breeding any is the best option.

 

Branding and releasing animals is also unfair to other players as they cannot look after that creature if they find it, it shrinks the available amount of creatures and serves no purpose beyond making it harder for others to play.

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Ok, so it is a rule, then. Is the rule the same for non-aggressive creatures that won't attack players?

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I believe what Retro was saying is that there is no rule just fair play as your released animals cannot be used by new players or any players if branded, you would be better off killing them or keeping them. At least killing them allows more wild or bred animals to exist or spawn. (This goes back to the reason deed animal ratios was bought in as people hoarded so many animals the wild spawns decreased severely

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7 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

Branded creatures cannot be attacked, which would clearly open up a huge potential griefing issue if an aggressive animal attacked a player and could not be attacked back, which would likely fall into the "play nice or we will rip your heart out" rule and result in a ban.

If it can result in a ban then clearly it is a rule. I am assuming, though, since the issue is players being attacked, that the same rule/bannable offence would not apply to non-aggressive creatures, right?

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If you have no desire to keep them yourself, I would say for the sake of the community and new players to unbrand them to allow them to be re-purposed.

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Ok, but is that an actual rule or is that just advice? Because it makes a difference, rules you can get banned for not following, advice you can take or leave as you see fit.

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if you're planning to release aggressive animals into the 'wild' branded, you put many players in danger and at risk because you literally cannot defend against a branded animal.  It's unfair to other players to do that.

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this is really making a lot of us wonder   WHY   you are doing it.

 

if it is for causing emotional distress to another player, then any such actions might be deemed bannable under griefing rules. Whether it is against an express rule or not would not matter in that case. 

 

if it is NOT done primarily to cause distress to others, then I think most of us are curious why you won't say "why"

 

 

Edited by Brash_Endeavors
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I can only keep a certain number of animals on my deed. Sometimes I'll breed more of a certain animal for various reasons (for better traits, it's venerable and I can't care for it, etc.). When I do this and I need more space, I release the extra animals into the wild. The reason I keep them branded is because I don't like killing animals, and releasing them without brands would be the same as me killing them, because I know that without brands they'll be slaughtered within hours or days at most.

Obviously I'm not going to do this if it's against the game rules, hence the reason for this post. So what I understand so far is that it is illegal with aggressive animals because they can attack players. My next question is, is it illegal for non-aggressive animals, for any reason?

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oops need to check something, but i would suggest an offdeed "FREE TO GOOD HOIME" pen for those.

 

(I had some branded deer that wandered off deed and were killed but I think that might have been by predators not players, sorry for the mixup)

 

Edited by Brash_Endeavors

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I didn't know you could kill branded horses off deed - so if I leave my branded horse somewhere and log off, it could be dead when I log back on?

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Unfortunately I think you're wrong there, Brash. You cannot target branded animals period, on deed or off.  The only thing she'd accomplish is making it so that there are fewer wild animals to hunt, I'd think.

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yeah i ninja edited, i was thinking of some branded deer of mine that wandered off deed and were killed but I think those were from predators not players, i ninja edited but not fast enough. Also i think i was remembering an alt of mine who cannot kill branded horses on my main's deed despite permissions, but if she leads them back to her own deed, she can slaughter them. Dunno why. Maybe as mayor there she has more latitude.

 

I'd still vote instead for an offdeed  pen of "free to good home" animals instead

 

Among other things,  there is sometimes long brewing animosity between hunters and breeders, hunters thinking that players who overbreed are causing a shortage of spawns and this would add gasoline to  that fire. By allowing other players to at least have use of the animals, it would diffuse that and turn you into the "good guy".  Another possible option is to brand the animal but permit it to be lead/ridden by anyone in the kingdom. However if you are doing enough of this so as to be causing people to notice, you can probably expect a little drama at minimum. 
 

 

I am old and sometimes my brain cells malfunction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Brash_Endeavors

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I'd be hesitant about putting animals in a free pen because they'd eventually starve there unless someone committed to feeding them. Part of the reason I release them is that I don't have time to feed and care for them. At least if they're free they can roam around and find food. I have tried to set the permissions to everyone can manage, but the only option for everyone seems to be in alliance, as far as I can tell there isn't an option for everyone under freedom isles.

I've actually only got about six branded released animals, I was just concerned because one of the devs has turned this into a personal vendetta and promised he'll try to make a case to get me banned, hence my checking exactly what the rules say. I'm still waiting on an answer for whether it's also against the rules to release branded non-aggressives? Just a simple yes or no will do, if anyone knows for sure. Though if yes I would like to know the reason, since the reason for not releasing aggressives is that they kill players, which obviously doesn't apply to non-aggressives.

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7 minutes ago, Attenia said:

I'd be hesitant about putting animals in a free pen because they'd eventually starve there unless someone committed to feeding them. Part of the reason I release them is that I don't have time to feed and care for them. At least if they're free they can roam around and find food. I have tried to set the permissions to everyone can manage, but the only option for everyone seems to be in alliance, as far as I can tell there isn't an option for everyone under freedom isles.

I've actually only got about six branded released animals, I was just concerned because one of the devs has turned this into a personal vendetta and promised he'll try to make a case to get me banned, hence my checking exactly what the rules say. I'm still waiting on an answer for whether it's also against the rules to release branded non-aggressives? Just a simple yes or no will do, if anyone knows for sure. Though if yes I would like to know the reason, since the reason for not releasing aggressives is that they kill players, which obviously doesn't apply to non-aggressives.

 

Alright, this is the second time you've brought this up.

 

Yes, my attitude toward you was regretful earlier, but we do have a bit of a rough past. So leaving that history and my feelings about you aside, I want to lay down the facts.

 

As I told you, I don't have it out for you. I want us both to be able to enjoy the game, though as a developer - and a neighbor - and an alliance mate as well, I've had increasing complaints about your release program. I honestly was only mildly involved until I was hearing reports of branded aggressive creatures that you've released attacking players. I could not find these myself and I did not do a full investigation - I merely ran around to see if I happened by one. While I found your catch and release program an annoying and unintentional use of the branding functionality, I couldn't feasibly see how you'd ruin the hunting on an entire server with a few hundred branded animals.

 

Then I was informed that you've increased your deed size to allow for over 700 branded animals to release.

Then I was informed that you had intentions on expanding more.

Lastly, recalling how our pathing works in Wurm, I realized that at this number you could very possibly destroy hunting in a localized area of the server.

 

You have stated several times to me and others that your intention is to catch-and-release animals to prevent them from being killed. As a player and being in your kingdom on Chaos, I was well aware of your no-kill policies in your village there. I had not anticipated you to leverage a quality of life feature in PvE to force this policy on others to this extent.

 

I did not try to make a case to get you banned. I actually suggested that you remove the brands from aggressive creatures to avoid issues in that regard. I also told you that I felt that you were misusing a feature, and that I was bringing this opinion to the team to fix it. To me, this is an obvious misuse of the branding feature and I feel we must now take steps to curb this in the future. I can see no viable game play reason to release branded creatures into the wild except to circumvent the creature ratio, which is pretty much what you've stated here.

 

TL;DR: I don't want to get you banned. I feel you are misusing a feature. It's not up to me to decide if your misuse is a violation of rules, but it is up to me to bring this potential loophole and misuse of a feature to the team. My opinion is not an official dev team ruling, though it's also not something I've come to willy-nilly.

 

I won't touch on the so-called "personal vendetta", except to say that I only wish I could play the game in peace.

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Under the "play nice or else" rule you can indeed become banned if you do this on a large scale.

We are  many that wonder why you insist on getting all these animals to start with.

And they are pixels, just kill or sacrifice them already.

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1 hour ago, Attenia said:

I can only keep a certain number of animals on my deed. Sometimes I'll breed more of a certain animal for various reasons (for better traits, it's venerable and I can't care for it, etc.). When I do this and I need more space, I release the extra animals into the wild. The reason I keep them branded is because I don't like killing animals, and releasing them without brands would be the same as me killing them, because I know that without brands they'll be slaughtered within hours or days at most.

Obviously I'm not going to do this if it's against the game rules, hence the reason for this post. So what I understand so far is that it is illegal with aggressive animals because they can attack players. My next question is, is it illegal for non-aggressive animals, for any reason?

So what you are essentially doing here is forcing your will to not kill animals onto everyone else in the area/server, by leaving a brand on that prevents their death by a player. How is that right in any capacity?

 

To your actual question, however, the rules don't explicitly state such a thing is disallowed, but just because the rules don't explicitly state such things are allowed doesn't make them ok to do, as per the "play nice or we rip your heart out" rule. Such cases would be ruled on independently by the GM Team on a case-by-case basis.

 

The Game Rules, Forum Rules, and Chat Rules can be found here as well: http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/123123-wurm-rules/

 

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I guess I am still confused, after all.

 

  • If it is a very small number of animals involved (you say "six"), then letting those animals retire on your deed and taking care of them in their old age should not be a hardship for you.
  • if it is a very 'large" number (people are noticing and talking, or you are increasing deed size to accommodate 700) then I am curious why you breed so many that you cannot care for.

 

i am a large scale breeder of five speed ebony jet speeds (not to mention every other color under the rainbow and bison too)  so I am aware of how fast they can pile up in the quest to get "clean perfect five speeds".   However, if you are loathe to kill them out of a respect for animal dignity, then I wonder why you force breed so many of them to serve purely human whims. A three speed animal is not all that much slower than a five speed and deserves to be loved too. If it is for profit  then it seems not out of concern for animal dignity, because you are effectively selling them into slavery with little regard for how the end user will take care of them, if you breed them because you simply enjoy them, then you should be willing to accept them flaws-and-all and not continue to force breeding to get perfect genetic specimens.

 

(I am aware that they are "just pixels" however Wurm is not only a role playing game, but one that evokes deep emotions in people, so if you are going to PLAY wurm, you are usually going to LIVE Wurm)

 

 

 

Obviously i have to come to terms with my own judgments and ethics and only you can come to terms with yours, but I think you should examine three four issues when you do:

  • How much of this is for YOUR enjoyment (personal needs) 
  • how much takes into consideration the gameplay of OTHER players (community needs) 
  • from an animal ethics standpont, force breeding animals that you say you cannot care for yourself, just to achieve "genetic perfection", probably needs some soul searching, even from a roleplay perspective
  • Artificially increasing the number of horses through mass breeding effectively means all other naturally occurring animals are denied their own right to exist and disturbs the balance of nature

 

Anyway from a "legal" standpoint, I personally would privately PM Enki as in the Wurm universe, he is the final arbitrator of what is and isn't acceptable LEGAL behavior, and he is given wide latitude by Rolf to make those decisions.

 

If he says it is fine, just tell anyone who asks that you discussed it with Enki and put them on ignore.

If he says it is NOT all right, then you are bound to abide since he is the final judge jury and  ...  executioner. 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Brash_Endeavors
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i suspect sociopath. 
this is not an insult, just an unqualified observation but it would explain alot.
Attenia you're not just sharing land with people who play, you're shaping land for people who might. so much forthcoming innocence, waiting to be shattered by a megalomaniac. 
Releasing 700 branded animals into the wild, aggressive or not, is madness. unless you're the only `true` soul that plays. 
which from your perspective, you might well be.
again, not an insult. but it's the only thing that makes sense. 
this has been an interesting read. 

Griefing is bannable. releasing herds of branded animals especially the aggressive ones, is griefing. there's your rule.
the non aggressives?.. the animal's function in the game is removed when you brand and release them. this lessens the experience of others and if chronic, could also be considered, griefing the game.
I hope my consideration is not out of place and i pray that it makes sense.

 

Edited by Steveleeb
spacing typo etc
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2 hours ago, Brash_Endeavors said:

(I am aware that they are "just pixels" however Wurm is not only a role playing game, but one that evokes deep emotions in people, so if you are going to PLAY wurm, you are usually going to LIVE Wurm)

Well, sometimes we need that reminder still, that they exist cause we want them to.

Even if it did sound harsh to call them just pixels.

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5 hours ago, Brash_Endeavors said:

Obviously i have to come to terms with my own judgments and ethics and only you can come to terms with yours, but I think you should examine three four issues when you do:

  • How much of this is for YOUR enjoyment (personal needs) 
  • how much takes into consideration the gameplay of OTHER players (community needs) 
  • from an animal ethics standpont, force breeding animals that you say you cannot care for yourself, just to achieve "genetic perfection", probably needs some soul searching, even from a roleplay perspective
  • Artificially increasing the number of horses through mass breeding effectively means all other naturally occurring animals are denied their own right to exist and disturbs the balance of nature

 

+1 to reasoning with Attenia in a kind way that she can understand. You have truly impressed me with your responses, @Brash_Endeavors. I wish we all could be as patient and level-headed as you.

 

I am not a fan of Attenia's large-scale breeding program by any means, but because it (usually) doesn't affect me, I keep my mouth shut. However, that means when something comes along that does affect me, I react a little bit more hot-headedly, having kept my annoyances to myself for so long. Bottom line is, and I will maintain this stance no matter how harshly it comes out: If what you're doing (negatively) impacts another person's gameplay and you simply don't care because your needs are more important than theirs, then I think a bit of self-reflection and change (whether it be from within or by intervention) is in order. This doesn't include expanding your deed to accomodate 5-10 times the amount of creatures you could once have, but it does include the attitude that if your neighbors have a problem with it, it's "tough luck." This does not include branding animals or breeding large quantities of animals, but it does include releasing said animals to the wild where--believe it or not--they aren't your responsibility anymore, but become the burden of other players who either cannot attack or cannot enjoy them properly because of what... Selfishness? 

 

A simple solution, if this feature continues to be abused, would be to match the number of possible branded animals on a deed to the possible creature count of the deed itself. Then, all animals can live in peace and harmony on deed where they belong and it doesn't become anyone else's problem. However, it shouldn't have to come to this. I hope the incident does resolve naturally and by Attenia's choice. I hope this creates the realization for her that not everything revolves around her animals and that other people are affected by her methods of getting what she wants, but if it doesn't... Well, I tried. (And tried. And tried.)

 

And I should clarify: my opinion of the situation has nothing to do with Attenia as a person. She is a fellow kingdom member and alliance mate, and while I do not agree with what she is doing, I will say she is a kind person with a big heart for all of these creatures. I wish I could get inside her head for just a moment to see things the way she does, so I could better help the situation, myself. :P

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