Behaviour of the FL players…

Maybe it’s the way you deal with that.
We don’t have much rules in the WTS World,
but our main rule we try strictly 2 enforce is

Cheating, swearing and insulting other players is NOT tolerated. (crime #1)

And as soon as any of our admins notices,
that there might be a upcoming problem,
we take action and talk 2 the player in a 1st step

• as at least one person, who posted in this topic will be able 2 confirm.
  

Usually the players accept,
that there is a limit in ‘roleplay’,
beyond which teasing should not go.
Some might leave, if they don’t like the
prison system or admin bounty on their head,
if an additional motivation should be needed.

And 4 sure this might be a bigger problem
in bigger communities.

My take on it from the years of using that tactic is this…

Well motivated Bounty Hunters do a very interesting job of deterring undesirable behavior just as long as they are educated and self controlled enough not to do the same tactics as a punishment.

Everyone always laughs about having a bounty put on them at first, but after a while it really does get under everyone’s skin not being able to log into the server unmolested. If you let a bounty go too long, that same person that originally thought it a joke will actually leave a server.

Pretty much standard human behavior I’m sorry to say, idiots, a-holes & bullies are not just restricted to RL you know, they tend to be more prominant because of the anonymous nature of the internet.

This behavior has always been part of FL, in the early days there were so many players & servers that you might never run into these idiots, but as the player count has dropped it’s become harder to avoid them.

I have to agree 100% with you there.

Just add one other thing to it, frustration. Due to this formerly well behaved players are having more “Bad Days” when they grow tired of logging into a server and seeing low numbers of old friends. You will especially notice this when a new unknown group shows up in mass with Role Play in full force stating that they will soon own the universe. Some former “non idiots” may feel outnumbered and convert.

@Bejaymac:

……
This behavior has always been part of FL, in the early days there were so many players & servers that you might never run into these idiots, but as the player count has dropped it’s become harder to avoid them.

It’s also a case of point of view. One person which you might thing is a total idiot could be a very fine person elsewhere; therefore, it’s just about impossible to see a “purge” of the idiots to happen as time goes by. It might even go the opposite way: as the community gets thinner, there’s a higher chance to encounter very… opinionated people. They might not be right nor wrong, but they can sure stir some issues every once in a while.

Maybe I’ve just played on the wrong servers from day one (which I rather doubt - I wouldn’t have traded my regular servers for the world), but I can tell you with absolute and unwavering certainty that nothing has changed - people haven’t gotten any worse than they used to be.

Flames, both in game and on random community boards? Spam? Random, annoying, and asinine tactics? Nothing new - in fact, I’d actually say that things are getting better in the sense that you don’t have 500+ (and no, this is not an exaggeration - I counted once) posts on here, or on TLR complaining (that is to say, flaming) a specific group or faction, unlike the early days on FL when such posts were a dime-a-dozen.

Personally, flames never bothered me… maybe I just have an unusually thick skin, but I’ve never quite understood why some people allow themselves to get so riled up by some random moron that has a penchant for cursing and insulting people… especially considering that most modern servers have a mute function.

If anything has changed, it has been the servers. I rather enjoyed the early days of Freelancer, before the length of a server’s rules list began to rival the holy scripture in terms of mind shattering length. I guess some people like that sort of thing, but I suppose I prefer a more ‘wild west’ atmosphere as opposed to the increasingly (and often unnecessarily, in my opinion) stringent rules I see.

And finally, why bemoan the lack of “GF”? Seriously, there’s no bloody point, and seeing a channel log full of

GO
GF^^
GO
GF^^
GO
GF^^

…into infinity is just a tiny bit mind numbing. If you’re in the middle of a long set of duels with someone, fire off a cruise disrupter to mark the start, and let it end without needless words. If the first fifty fights were good fights, the next fifty probably will be, too.

Thanks for your input! I’ve always tried to cordial to my opponents. And most of them seem to return the effort. But insults will always lead to more.

I often see players that repeatedly duel or pvp another player or group of players just type: /auto gfs in the system chat and that’s usually accepted instead of the gf after every fight. Then a vgf is used for an exceptionally good fight.

1.5 cents worth contributed…