OK if we can't track chest opening (which would be awesome but I understand the problems there), how about tracking of named blocks? I don't mean just staff but a sort of GPS locator on a named block to find out who broke it or stole it. We've got the new griefer tracker, this would be a variation of that... Just knowing that such a thing exists would perhaps be a deterrent for griefers. It could even cost rupees in addition to xp points to name a block like this, sort of like purchasing a locked chest only on any block..
It's already been in place for well over a year. Any special decor block OR any block thats renamed or "special" (Lore, etc), is logged if placed by a player. Only the super common terrain blocks like dirt and stone are not. So its very hard for a griefer to grief anything of value or built structures without it being logged. and with the upcoming anti griefing update, im even looking at being smart and not allowing breaking even common blocks NEAR structures
Be careful. In the case of a public shared mine, for example, that might cause issues. It could also cause issues if players are building a structure together. Also, keep in mind a scenario where a player builds, for example, a wall around the spawn, and nobody can get through. Or sometimes you get structures that are, for example, a 1x1 tower of oak planks. One idea might be to give a player 'reputation' slowly over time, and each reputation allows them to over time break a few blocks. This would mean a new player couldn't destroy anything, while someone who's been on EMC for a long time and is trusted would be assumed less likely to be griefing. Reputation could be given for other things like receiving private messages, chatting locally, travelling distances, etc... Reputation would be kept secret from players so they wouldn't 'farm' it or anything like that. I assume you thought it all through though. It is a complicated issue for any sort of algorithm to solve.
Oh, don't worry, they can break all they want. It's just that it's logged. So when two people build something together, there's no problem at all. Say player Q and player P are making a building together. Player Q messages staff, saying he was griefed. Staff will check the logs, and see player X and player P come up. Player Q will then say player P is his friend, and didn't do it. Staff will investigate further into player X's broken blocks and notice he did in fact grief player Q and player P's base. Right? So it doesn't actually keep people from breaking stuff, it just makes it much easier to track griefers.
If it's logging, it's a great idea. If it's blocking breaking blocks because the system thinks you're griefing when you're really not, then that could be a problem in many situations. It's very hard/impossible for a computer to accurately determine in all cases what is a creation and what is not, and if the creator is okay with you changing what they built.
As mentioned in previous updates, there Friends system, Group System, and upcoming Empires system are gateways to identify who can break your blocks. We will soon start blocking the breaks outright, unless the person is either in your group, your friend (and in the future, in your empire) If someone then breaks the block while in one of those groups, THEN we can go into "was it malicious" checks and get staff involved. While it may result in some inconvenience initially, its worth it in order to protect users stuff from griefing. Want to temporarily allow them to break your blocks? group up. Long term allow? friends
This is excellent! Will we be able to monitor the friends feature via the forum/profile pages? It might be a bit of work to set up but once it's done this should solve a whole bunch of problems. Another issue that has been coming up in my outpost - griefers have figured out that breaking blocks is tracked, so they are filling in tunnels and blocking entryways now instead with common blocks such as dirt or wood. Oh and water, placing water buckets over my railways
A friend is someone you have established a relationship with (not talking romantic here), and that you enjoy playing/hanging out with. Someone you have an elevated level of trust with. I'm not sure why anyone would 'friend' someone they believe might grief them...
I think what happened was once the "friend" update came out a lot of people were spamming out friend invites and others may have accepted them as to not seem rude. But given what we've seen in this post here we may have to take "friends" on here with more seriousness.
I only add friends when I've had good, one-on-one conversation with them, not if I've seen them around and said something directed to them once or twice. Rude? No, not at all.
Imagine that you just joined EMC for the first time and you needed some help so you friend a staff member or other player who was helpful to you. How would you feel if they rejected your request? Sure, the impact may be softened if the other player realized that friendship entails access to all the other player's creations, however do we really want players to have to explain that to everyone as they reject the request, because I'm sure most wont. Regardless of how you perceive it, many people take it offensively if someone says no to being their friend. I'm sure many people will say it doesn't bother them, the same way they'd say it wouldn't bother them to be insulted, joked about, excluded from an activity, ignored, etc... when it really does. A lot of people play Minecraft for the social aspect, in short they play to make new friends. If people just wanted to build by themselves or with friends they know in real life, they can easily do that on single player or a private server. Even though the permissions granted to a friend are not anything more than are granted right now to any odd player and the system is in effect only adding security, I still think this is an important consideration about whether we want to encourage the EMC community to not be 'friendly' to one another over fear of being griefed. Many people join EMC without knowing anyone and friends were all strangers at one point. I really think the two shouldn't be tied together, or it they are, at least have a second tier of friendship so players can be friends without granting build rights on their creations. Many people are used to openly accepting others as friends even if they don't know them that well. It's commonly done on social networks and many applications. You can't fight this. Here's how I imagine it. 1) You build a creation (say a house in the wild). 2) Another player comes along, and wants to add a patio. 3) It detects that (s)he is modifying your creation, and prompts you to allow or deny it. 4) You click allow and they can help build. You could specify time limited (ie 15 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day) or forever.
You're suggesting we devalue the friends system to "someone I've talked to" rather than a friend's system. If you talk to a person in the street and they ask for your phone number or address , do you give it to everyone who asks just to "avoid being rude"? No. If a person takes offense to you saying no, then that's a personal problem with the person. It's not the systems problem to accommodate for. How is it any different if that said person then asks you to let them break your blocks? Will you say no then? Back to same issue. Sorry but we can't over complicate and devalue the meaning of friendship due to a few individuals personal issues. A majority of people are not going to friends you, and then those that do, A majority isn't going to be upset and rage quit because you said no, so the system will be simple. If you are wanting to avoid the conversation, fine friend them. The likelihood someone you engaged with is going to grief you is slim. The actual griefers aren't the type to plan out a grief, and even if they did, they'll still get banned. So the goal of the system is to reduce the number of griefings to almost none, but not exactly be perfect. Empires will give you solid protection then but this system will work to hold you off until then
Oh dear, well that puts me in a pickle. I've said yes to every friend request I've received, because hey, sure - the more the merrier, right? It's internet friends, and while there are many exceptions, most of the time, that's a casual thing. It's a "hey can I share this park bench with you while I eat my lunch?" kinda request in my mind, not an address and phone number. derp, I didn't know this was how I designated my building partners. Uh oh. I should have followed corruptedsmile's lead and turned the thing off from the get go. Now I've gone and done it to myself. I think some other folks may have had the same confusion (I hope I'm not the only idiot wandering around misunderstanding). Very glad you clarified that, thank you! I will have to figure out how to tactfully fix my goof.
That would depend. My phone number I give out pretty easily. If I talked to them for a while and though they're a cool person, then yes. If I did business with them and enjoyed the experience, then yes. If they were new in town or needed help with something and I was willing to help them, then yes. If they're cute, then yes. I think you'll find that most people give out their phone number pretty easily and it doesn't take a lot of rapport to get it out of them. For the address, obviously that's different, because unless they're planning to mail me something or show up at my house, they have no reason to need that. But still, if my home was a business, the address and phone number would be on a card, given out to nearly everyone who could potentially be a customer. But I really don't see how this relates to friendship. Giving out personal information is entirely separate. To me, friendship is simply a positive feeling that two people have towards one another. When you say someone is your friend, you indicate that you enjoy spending time with them. If you refuse to be friends, it means that you do not want to spend time with that person if you can avoid it. It has a whole host of negative connotations if you say someone is not your friend after you already met them. I disagree. You're building a system used by humans. Humans are emotional, not logical, creatures. You can't change people, and some people can and do regularly accept strangers as friends, especially on the internet. Some people can and do take offense if denied friendship. It's not really your place to say that these people are all wrong in how they think. You need to build a system that can be used by the EMC community as a whole. It needs to be clear what permissions people are granting others by performing certain actions. To perform a better analogy, what you're saying is that you will give a key to my house to everyone who I claim is a friend. If you tell me about that, then okay, I'll decide not to have very many friends. People can and will take offense to that, but I can't let them in my house. Now you create an obligation for me to explain this situation to anyone while I deny their friend request, and even then I'm basically telling everyone I don't trust them. But in this case, it's worse, because imagine I hadn't read this thread or the wiki or wherever you decide to post about this system. I'm certainly not going to expect it. I openly accept friendship from customers in my shop or suppliers or any of the numerous people I interact with regularly on EMC. The next day, my TV goes missing. You can blame me for not reading the rules or the wiki or whatever, but it's not going to bring the TV back or repair my ill feelings. We've heard from numerous people in this thread alone who are in the same boat, having accepted many friend requests from people they interact with or know on EMC but don't fully trust. Yes it's completely different. I would ask why they want permission to break my blocks. They would need to provide a reasonable justification for wanting to break my blocks. I would monitor them. I would know and understand that I'm saying yes they can break my blocks. And I would take the permissions away after they were finished. Friendship doesn't work like that. It's a consistent and perpetual thing. You aren't friends with someone for an hour while you build something together, then not friends because you're logging out and going to bed. Yet this seems to be what you suggest will be how the system works. We've already heard from 4 people in this thread alone (not counting me) who have already added people they don't know well as friends. Based also on the requests I've been getting already, I'd say this is fairly widespread, limited mainly by who has used the friend system or not. Most people handle rejection reasonably well. However, most people do not enjoy it, and most people do not think highly of people who reject them. Right, the chances are small. If I gave 10 random people on the street a key to my house, the chances of getting robbed are very slim. Most people would have a moral issue with stealing, and even those who didn't would fear the consequences or not know where I live. But still, I would have this fear, regardless of how rational it was, and I wouldn't go around handing out keys to my house. Even if I knew that anyone who stole anything would be caught and go to jail, I still wouldn't do it. I do appreciate the goal. I just don't want to lose the friendly community of EMC where everyone is always helping each other out and open to be friends with one another. I think if you tie friendship to block breaking, it makes people a lot less likely to be friendly with one another. Whenever someone sends them a friend request, they may be suspicious that person is doing it to be able to break their blocks. I also fear for people who may not know that they are giving others permission to break their blocks when being friends, and that they might get blamed for being griefed because they accepted a friend request from the person.
