Hello everyone. Just wanted to let everyone know of a semi-interesting (as in, hopefully you'll never have to see it!) new staff tool: The ability to mute players. Many infractions on Empire Minecraft are minor chat related, and being tempbanned and unable to play can be quite disheartening to your friends too who wanted to play with someone who broke a rule. So, were now able to mute a player when the offense is minor and chat related, allowing the player to continue playing, but unable to cause more chat issues. This is a much more appropriate punishment for the crime. Hope you never have to see it!
Will there be a notice so when a friend trys to PM a player who is muted it says "Player is muted for "3 hours 23 minutes 2 seconds" or something?
Hmm, good idea. Will add that in tonights auto reboot. Up to the staff member. Temporary will be the primary use.... But perm is an option if it ever is actually warranted.
It might be worth adding an option to mute them in all large-scale chats, like town etc. That way players can still play with their friends, but can't annoy everybody
this is a great idea. as someone who has, in the past, been muted on a server it's a good "time out" and helps the player refocus on the point of the game instead of being a jerk in chat.
I think that it should show like a normal ban/kick message. Even though a player might be muted, often times the rest of the server won't drop the topic about what they said. Then it kind of transitions into mass chat spam where others are trying to teach people the rules, but the player isn't responding to them and that just encourages more discussion about the offending player.
Only reasonable times I would find appropriate for muting is under an hour. Over an hour would be for server advertisers (hopefully they get bored waiting to advertise and start playing the server and enjoy it)
Also, I have a suggestion. If they are muted, I would suspect that they would be typing up stuff and sending it since they know it won't go through. I would like to see a system that extends their mute length for every inappropriate chat they send out. It would use the same filter that the current filter uses.
I don't think these tools are designed to 'punish' exactly. If a player wants to rant without being heard, that may actually be a healthy way to deal. The mute is more to protect the rest of the players on the server, and give the player muted time to think about their chat conduct and change behaviour. As opposed to a kick or a ban which may not be necessary, and sometimes counter productive to them having a positive fun experience on EMC. We all know players can be a temperamental bunch, and sometimes have bad temper moments (particularly given many players are of young age and don't deal with things the same as an adult). This can result in rebellious outbursts either aimed at someone or anyone. Their game play is fine, it's just their chat that's an issue. A temporary mute allows them to carry on playing and give them time to compose themselves and change chat behaviour. Perhaps the player has just entered EMC after being dissatisfied with many other servers. And having learned from other servers that certain chat language and behaviour is ok, while here at EMC, it's not. Players may also have experienced in other server, a lack of staff presence in maintaining their rules of conduct, and believe EMC might be the same. And so misbehave. A simple tempmute after ignored warnings often results in a player decideing this is a server they like. Where players and staff enjoy a great server relatively free of abuse and drama. Perhaps a long time player just got badly griefed, lost their god gear to lava, or had a major disagreement with another player. such things can really get someone down, and they can 'loose their cool' over it. We don't want to ban them, we know they will be fine, they may just need some time to cool off and some advice on how to recover and carry on. A tempmute might be in order, allow them to keep playing, or rebuild/recover, protect their build, without getting themselves into trouble breaking chat rules. Tempmute, like kick and ban is a helpful tool for players as much as staff. And lengths of these things are decided case by case, as will best benefit the player and EMC.
So will it show up in chat when somebody is muted? So people don't get confused by someone just not answering any more?
Good point. I came in with this suggestion after a player had gone on a profanity laced CAPS marathon, and was then muted. There was no provocation (like being griefed) so I didn't think about it being a safe way to vent.
