Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Question for Garva about acceptable SL play?
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1SpectrE1
Wed Jul 28, 2004 10:57 am
#1
Garva said:
You have not seen the logs, you do not know everything that took place, please do not make assumptions based on one sided information, because it gets distorted and changed about 50 times between them and you. The cases in where people were reprimanded were legitimate and had nothing to do with just the fact that squad leader specials appear in spatial. You will not get any more information than that because we are not Allowed to share private account information regardless of the issue with a customers account.
CSR'sdo know how squad leader works and simply playing their profession does not get anyone banned.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Mr Garva:
I think most SL'rs are trying to figure out what is acceptable gameplay for the SL profession as it relates to the frequency that specials can be spammed. I propose these questions:
- Is there ever a time, place, or city that a SL cannot spam the /formup command?
- If so, what are the restrictions in the ammount of spam?
- Can a group, use an afk SL bot, postitioned away from the battle, who is using in-game macros to spam the commands?
- If so, how far away does the afk SL bot have to be?
There are some HUGE flaws that I am not sure if you are aware of or not. Unfortunately the group members boxes do not work when you are some distance away. This results in the SL Not being able to SEE on the windows, when states are applied. This forces us to spam to preserve the group.
This is a SS of last night.
http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=get&tp=101380
Notice that I am approximately 500+ meters away from my group. I cannot see their HAM bars and state effects. How can I know when to spam the /formup command so that I can keep their state cures down? Now a valid question will be asked about this, that being WHY was I not actively fighting in the battle in this pic? Well, this occured on Dant, the laggiest planet on Radiant and I did not want to disrupt the gameplay of my group, or those that we were fighting.
Now, If a CSR saw this, what we he assume? Would i get kicked from the game and warned over this, even though my group was actively fighting? This is what we need answers too.
Now, onto the next order of business:
Here is a pic of an afk SL spamming commands, behind the Theed starport.
http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=get&tp=101397
Here is a pic of the chat log from that afk SL spamming.
http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=get&tp=101393
Is this acceptable gameplay for the SL? Can this type of spamming result in a warning, getting kicked form the game etc.?
This is what we are getting at Garva, in so much as we want to know what we can do without haveing to worry about any in-game problems.
Ty for your time, hope we can get an answer.
**edit**
As far as your logs, as compared to the players logs, this is how ours show up. To say that commands were spammed 10-40 times a second, well that is not what we see in our logs. If the spamming results in something that we do not know about and cannot detect then let us know what causes it so we can refrain from doing it.**edit**
Message Edited by 1SpectrE1 on 07-28-2004 11:02 AM
1SpectrE1
Wed Jul 28, 2004 11:18 am
#2
Also,
The fact that a few SL'rs have been warned / banned or whatever has opened up a huge door of possible griefing. Now, on radiant, when groups are engaged in fighting all they do is look for spammers and /report them.
This will get worse and worse until there are some definate guidlines as to what is acceptable and what is not.
The majority of battles on Radiant now involve SL'rs, to have players wondering if what they are doing is ok or not is troublesome to say the least.
Please, definate guidlines is all we ask.
Ty again for your time
irott
Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:07 pm
#3
Ok... I'm going to set some guidelines for you.
1. Do not create AFK SL Bots.
2. Do not create Macros to Spam SL commands.
3. Do not intentionaly disrupt other peoples play (unless you are attacking them in PvP which is an acceptable form of disruption).
4. Do not refuse to do what a CSR tells you.
Note: These guidelines are in no way endorsed by SOE, the SWG development team or Customer Service.
Spectre... really, what are you looking for?
Kosso
Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:12 pm
#4
I just got SL, and I did it for my guild. I have a macro that spams the /retreat command every 11 seconds. I was told by people that SLs have been banned for spamming of commands. Im not sure if this is true though, so I come here to check it out, and lo and behold there is a post talking about banned SL. If that is true, the DEVs have no one to blame but themselves. If the command was not a shout, SL's could create a channel and spam all their chat into those channels. Sadly, that doesnt work. So, is spamming an SL command a bannable offense?
irott
Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:20 pm
#5
Kosso,
The problem isnt in the fact that our profession has shouts to accompany many of our skills, its the fact that players find they need to spam/macro these commands. Once the CB and the SL revamp are underway, I will be working on removing the need to spam these commands and ultimatly a way to remove SL bots from the game. Until then though, players should continue to do what they do. No one has ever been banned/suspended for JUST spamming, there were other variables that got them to that point.
Just remember its the other players who submit these tickets to the CSRs to complain about the spam, the CSRs are just responding to the rest of the playerbase's anoyance (something I want to change, because I don't want anyone to be anoyed from just being around a SL.)
Just keep playing the way you play and try to respect other players.
Kosso
Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:23 pm
#6
I see. Well, I just wanted to be clear on this. But, the only reason I spam, is because the burst run is too short. Not to mention with the amount of jedi out there, an SL's infinite burst run is a miracle, helps us catch up to those fast mother **edit**ers. But I will play the way I have, and if I get called in by a CSR, i'll post here for y'all to read 'bout.
1SpectrE1
Wed Jul 28, 2004 6:36 pm
#7
irott said:
Kosso,
The problem isnt in the fact that our profession has shouts to accompany many of our skills, its the fact that players find they need to spam/macro these commands. Once the CB and the SL revamp are underway, I will be working on removing the need to spam these commands and ultimatly a way to remove SL bots from the game. Until then though, players should continue to do what they do. No one has ever been banned/suspended for JUST spamming, there were other variables that got them to that point.
Just remember its the other players who submit these tickets to the CSRs to complain about the spam, the CSRs are just responding to the rest of the playerbase's anoyance (something I want to change, because I don't want anyone to be anoyed from just being around a SL.)
Just keep playing the way you play and try to respect other players.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Be careful of statements like this! I was there for 1 banning and 2 warnings and this is not the case! You are wrong in your assesment! I was actually playing one toon who was warned.
From what I have gathered, if enough peeps complain and /report, the SL will have probs, no matter where or what they are doing. This is a fact! Not saying it is wide spread or what not, but I do know that this is a fact!
Just because you have not had probs and what not don't falsely lead peeps to do something that may cause them probs. You have been luck trust me!
As far as the afk spam bots, do I like no, but as you said they are in no way a violation of anything and SOE has developed ways to ignore this for peeps who are annoyed by it. But! peeps still getting warned and in trouble for doing it.
Jasyn
Wed Jul 28, 2004 8:56 pm
#8
I was skeptical of these reports when I first read them, but now that I have seen the reports of more then 3 SL's getting CSR restrictions in the last week I'm a bit more concerned. I don't bot and I don't macro my SL abilities so I believe I have nothing to fear for the most part, however I am EXTREAMLY discouraged by SOE's lack of ability to address this formally other then making a final comment in a thread then Locking it down. That is a very dangerous business tactic if they want to keep accounts from closing out of sheer anger at their attempted strong-arm tactics of silencing people. As an address to that final comment, I for one don't care about the information in that so called "privet account", I want to know why macroing is incorporated in the game as a natural design feature. Then when some one finds a good use for a relatively weak profession as you all agree it needs a revamp, they use this new macro tactic and its treated as if it is destructive to the game for SL to have some effect. PLEASE I request that some one in SOE's official ranks make an announcement to once and for all provide clarification and clear vision as to what exactly they expect us to do with our profession.
Blaming Players for Design flaws in programming is simply bad public relations SOE. Not addressing them openly and with some humility is just dumb when it's obviously a problem. The only people to report on this issue so far as CSR's and there administrators and one SOE public relation's personal, its unacceptable that a DEV or TH has not even attended some mark of notice to the largest thread in SL's forum history. I can only hope that clear head's prevail and this problem is handled with a bit more respect as its serious. This is damaging our profession as well as the community. Instead we should be approaching all of this constructively and in full view of the community with the positive attitude that it can be changed and changed for the better.
GarVa
Thu Jul 29, 2004 9:42 am
#10
Just a fyi, Ido work for SOEand DO other things than just act like forum police ya know 
As stated in the previous post... if you are just doing your duties as a SL, there is absolutely nothing wrong, if reported a csr will ask you about the report (like they do all the time with most reports) and if you explain what you were doing they will say ok likely and move along.
If you were Intentionally spamming commands just to disrupt the game play of others then they would likely issue a warning or if you are rude/abrasive to the csr a suspension.
This is not anew policy and has been there all along.
If you see someone afk (such as your image may suggest) then try sending them a tell to see if they are there, if they are in afk mode but there, then simply turn afk filtering on. If they are not even there and gone for a long period of time and running their specials in an area where it would effect a large amount of players without any specific reason, and disrupt the game play then yes that is inappropriate.
Additionally, the devs and the CSR's are both aware of the issue and will let you know if there is anything else to worry about as far as this issue goes.
Message Edited by GarVa on 07-29-2004 09:54 AM
1SpectrE1
Fri Jul 30, 2004 9:12 am
#11
Any word yet Garva, I thought you sent this up the the CSR's?
Mindw
Fri Jul 30, 2004 1:57 pm
#12
1SpectrE1 wrote:
Any word yet Garva, I thought you sent this up the the CSR's?
of course not. he has no word. Just like the rest of them, he's just covering up there mess ups. It's almost like Ole boy that stole the paper from the National Defense Cabinent and the people are trying to cover it all up. such a joke.
1SpectrE1
Fri Jul 30, 2004 2:01 pm
#13
Yeah, I hear ya. SOE has seriously adopted a "silent" approach to valid questions that need to be answered and it is so frustrating.
I cannot believe how poor the communication is concerning issues like these.
/sigh oh well, guess i will just keep plugging away in my dialy questions about these issues
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