The League

[Gollum]

So... I may ruffle some feathers, and get people mad at me, but i am going to say how i feel the league is...

I have expressed this to afew people, some agree, some don't, but here we go...

When i joined Bzflag, it was much smaller for one, and people were always very nice! We knew the rules and most of us respected them. One player put it as a "tight knit community" and it was!!! We all helped each other, respected each other, and respected the admins.
I left Bz for awhile, now I am back and I see how far downhill it has gone. Teamkilling is allowed, everything is about lag, winning is cause of lag...everyone is a cheater....etc... It has gone from a game to a complainers center! I play to play, to talk and goof off! I do play in the leagues and it is competition, but its supposed to be fun. I have a hard time having fun nowadays.
Admins, I dont know how things are run, I dont know if something happened and so different things are allowed...but swearing is constant, disruptions...everything! Perverted talk is always around...I know its a lifestyle for some people, but there is something called discretion.
I am just very dissapointed with where everything has gone... I miss the old ducati days where everyone got along, and respected each other...and we had FUN!
I'm considering leaving the league for these reasons....

Sincerely,
Gollum

[kierra]

Gollum,
You're right. BZ has changed from when you were last playing....not that we didn't have language and behavior issues then. Difference then was that it was dealt with swiftly, (warn, kick, ban).
Thanks for the head slap to us admins. Maybe we will rise to the responsibility of the position and enforce the rules. I, for one, intend to....so players be warned. I have zero tolerance for bad language, even in abbreviations....everyone knows what you mean when you type 'wt*' (insert f). Don't come crying to me that you didn't know....Read the rules section of the league sites to which you belong.

As for you seasoned players, no excuses....YOU know the rules. It takes a deliberate conscious decision to type profanity & harassment to players. If you do it, suck it up and take the consequences

[Cobra_Fast]

everything is about lag, winning is cause of lag...everyone is a cheater....etc... It has gone from a game to a complainers center! I play to play, to talk and goof off! I do play in the leagues and it is competition, but its supposed to be fun. I have a hard time having fun nowadays.

I completely agree to Gollum, especially whats said in the quoted extract.
Also I think the admins are balancing their seriousness on the wrong aspects, some admins intend to go kicking and banning even for a single bad word which might leave you during gameplay because something weird just happened (what can always be possible, even during a fun game). Other admins even keep smiling even if you call them the worst names you know... the balance's just wrong and thats just one example.

The main thing I dont like the league as much as I did some months ago any more are also those nasty cheat/lag/jit/packetloss/whatever accusations. If you're winning you went into a badass lagging jit-cheater... Maybe players need to get a lot more selfconfident to admit that they're having a bad day, or in some cases, are not as good as us.

I just think some things need to be turned a lot to get the real fun back to the league, though there are some people I like and it's good clean fun (as the bzbb's headline says) playing with or against them.

[slime]

Gollum - You mentioned a large part of this problem in one of your first sentences. When you joined, it was a smaller community. With growing communities comes more ill-behaved individuals, and it's something you will have to learn to live with. Even with increased punishments, bad apples will still exist and will still cause trouble when admins aren't around. The most you can do here is to try and avoid these bad apples. Personally, I just ignore everyone who whines about lag or complains a lot in general. This includes not playing them in official matches. If you hang around the league servers, you will quickly realize who is a complainer and ill tempered and who is someone you could actually have a civilized discussion with. Do your best to befriend the latter, and ignore the others.

I also do agree that it would be nice if the admins were a tad more strict about language and lag complaining. Maybe if the /mute command were more widely used it would help out(?) Keep in mind, though, that the league was created for competitive play, so some bad language out of frustration WILL happen no mater what. It's the people that use it constantly that are the problem.

As for lag complaints, perhaps remind players of the first guideline to matching:

Before starting a match, play a few minutes for warm up.
This allows you to check your lag and jitter and to check the lag and jitter of the other players.
If you dont like someone's connection this is good time you tell him.
As a rule of thumb, more than 250 ms lag, a jitter above 15ms or packet loss qualifies as a bad connection.

[Gollum]

Thanks for the head slap to us admins. Maybe we will rise to the responsibility of the position and enforce the rules.

Kierra,Im not so sure a head slap is what I was aiming for
All I wonder is there a way to effectively and nicely start to change the league? To where it attracts people again of all ages? Im not asking for total strictnness and a no tolerance rule...as Slime said some players are going to out of habit and frustration. Its those who do it constant. I want to see the league grow in size and in fun, I am not asking for the admins to create a revolution. I know it is not fun banning someone, but sometimes banning someone for 2 days is enough to make them re-think things...sure they may not like you for a bit. But they broke the rules it isn't the admins fault.
Players need to give admins a break really, admins are admins for a reason, they are there to make sure rules and such are followed. So if you break a rule expect to have a consequence.
So Kierra, im not trying to ruffle the admins here...Im trying to help and get the game back to the basics....FUN!

Cobra - I really think Bz has lost the concept of "good clean fun"...that is what we need to work on

Slime, I don't wish to use the /mute if i dont have to, that just seems...harsh. For how its going everyone will be muted
I am just hoping we can resolve these issues, players and admins together.

[FiringSquad]

I'm glad you brought this up Gollum.
I am a recently appointed Admin, and I will do what I can to help.

Indeed, I started a similar topic previously here: http://my.bzflag.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f ... 53&start=0
So you will see that we agree on this issue. Now though, I might have a chance to do something about it.

[dexter]

I think we can all agree on the fact that the league won't be as cozy and small as it was in the starting days but I think we should also step back and take a look at the current situation and compare it to what the atmosphere was like around a year ago or two. I assume it's safe to say that things have improved and the foul language, lag complaints and cheating accusations have gone down considerably. But as slime pointed out, nothing is perfect and ya gotta deal with the occasional immaturity, although there are cetrain players from whom one can always expect something unpleasant (while an admin isn't looking) so just try to move out of their way.

So, to sum it up: It may seem as though the league is going down the drain, but really, compared to what we went through with some players even a few months ago, the current situation is a lot better than it's been for a while.

[birdie]

As allready said, we (admins) cant always be there, if you see bad behavour: just send one of us (one of the active ones rather ) screanshots of it so we can deal with it. We cant "smell" some one said or did something bad if we werent there

Second of all, some might allow more than others which isnt strange, they act like how they personally feel like it. Some will warn if some one said by accident an f word, others wait till it happen again,...

Mostly when i see an f word, i just wait to say something, if it happens again I warn them in public and mostly they stop than. It's naive to think they wont say it again, but at least they understand it and will try to hold themself from doing it again.

And as last point, i do not think there are many people who repeadly go missbehaving and using bad words all the time. If it happens, most get banned cause others tell us anyway.

[Gollum]

Birdie I totally agree, and I like the screenshot Idea...

I dont want to sound picky, or anything, I just dont see the league growing with where it is at... Or anything...
I appreciate anything that is done, and that you guys are around and do what you can.
I will give input, but i also dont want to become a pest...

Gollum

[snick]

I miss the old ducati days where everyone got along, and respected each other...

Yep, the good old days when Death Barrel bought everyone flowers.

[Gollum]

Yep, the good old days when Death Barrel bought everyone flowers.

HaHa! yea, with afew bullets