Multi Digs?

Poker Alice

Well-Known Member
In this case, any rational person can look at the situation - a player not from any major alliance digging multis - and understand that what this player is doing is harmful, even though the "book" says it's not.
But really how are numerous digs actually considered harmful or an abuse of power and not just plain annoying?
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Let's presume the role of a town owner has a desire to disrupt fort battles (hypothetical I'm not actually doing this) for the purpose of causing havoc. But why? War is havoc. Fort battles cause discontentment in the west. Large powerful alliances attempt to dominate the land while small town owners or small alliances have little influence over what happens in it. The peasant class town works to upset the apple cart so to speak and attempts to make fort battles more difficult for the more powerful.

There could be like a real-world example of this - militia style tactics being employed by a less powerful la résistance!

What is difficult for me to understand at this moment is the following. There is a spillage which has occurred here in this thread, that is coming out of a role-playing game into the real world of game play. The western forts are not real battles but real people actually playing in the game is real. The question in this thread seems to be should players be able to play the game as they see fit ( such as disruptive digs) and not face a substantial call for moderation. <- If that sounded confusing I'll cheerfully explain what I meant if asked.

Once again I have no wish to take sides but as a rational person, simply seeking to understand game play. I don't mind being corrected. I now understand how havoc is caused but my question is if it is a doable thing then the player might be finding a loophole in order to take on a different role than that of dominate fort fighters?
 

DeletedUser15368

Well I do think there are a lot less people doing cowboy Role-Playing stuff in-game than there was in the 2009-2011 days, there's been some amazing characters in the saloons which add so much fun to the game. There is also a more competitive side to the game though, or maybe I should say was a more competitive side to it - Duels and Forts.

Duels enabled RP to a massive extent as you can imagine, before Forts even existed in the game, we used to have massive town wars, where we took turns KOing each other's entire saloon. Town raiding with your homies is one of the most fun parts of the game, and some of the interactions with other players over duelling is amazingly entertaining. Still interactions were mostly limited to your town mates and the fans that sent you mail.

Forts on the other hand involved over 150 people wanting a space at once, per side, at their peak, and required cooperation, tactics, following leadership and everyone knowing their role in a team. If you weren't capable of all of these things, your rank could easily go to another player instead and you would be left out, so you had to learn fast in some sense. It facilitated RP a bit, but was mostly dominated by groups of people who took the fights seriously, and wanted a competitive scene where they could be tested by an equally serious opposition. They trained new players and helped to gear them up so they would be a better asset to the team, and a great sense of community among fort fighters manifested.

These days the game is a little different, and personally I attribute it to a lack of players, especially new ones being retained. Obviously less people being spread around more means there's less chance you'll run into any particular type of player, but every single game world had, has and will have players who randomly dig forts with no intention of it being a proper battle, (from the point of view of someone who wants the competitiveness of a proper opposition) in fact a lot of the time the trolls don't show up to their own digs.

Leading and organising forts is actually quite a lot of work, and it's every day, sometimes on more than one world. Not many players are willing to lead, and it usually falls to just a few players to carry the entire team in that regard. Fort fighters understand that, so we generally always agree with each other to have 1 fight each night in the prime time for the most players and leaders, because we know this provides the best conditions for the best and most competitive battle. A disruption to that agreement, like a spam fort dig, shouldn't be a problem, you just ignore it and focus on the fight that you'll have fun at. When people don't ignore the troll, it can become a problem though. Everyone gets frustrated, maybe some vital leaders on one side or another don't enjoy the world as much due to the lack of competitiveness caused by a frustration tactic and focuses elsewhere, and any momentum the world is building with the competitiveness of battles falls apart.

Any currently functioning game world's internal PvP balance is so fragile that a small change could have big short term effects. And yes, I suppose it is mostly just annoying, but that annoyance can become damaging over enough time. I also do not want to exclude anyone from any aspect of the game, but it's hard to be inclusive towards someone genuinely just trolling the world for a month straight.

No competitive PvP = less people will be active on that world = everyone's game suffers because other players are the main content in The West.
 
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RaiderTr

Well-Known Member
Most of the current player base is people who played this game more than a decade or who gave a break and came back, since Inno doesn't bother to do any advertisement for this game for years. (They are busy Advertising their other games in this very game)

Either way, sadly, game requires much more time investment than before and most people are either really busy in real life, or got tired of dealing with the game and its problematic people.

And of course game wasn't P2W, and Events fest back in the day.
Now it's endless Tombolas, Gambling, Click-Click Drop Events & Not-Worth-Time Quests, instant-buy OP Nugget Sets game..

So yea, good luck with (proper) Role Play.
 

Poker Alice

Well-Known Member
So yea, good luck with (proper) Role Play.
I'll assume (proper) role play refers to adherence to in game player authorities? Maybe not but in any case what I think of when I see role play is a classification these kinds of games fall under. Of course there are different kinds and levels of role play. RPG games can be heavily involved in role play.

In the west, an imagination in a small way will allow for roles and titles such as soldier. These forts are not real. General's leading their armies into battle aren't actually real Generals. Yet, cooperative players do follow someone else's lead because of role playing within the game? Then, the illusion is suddenly broken as real tempers and frustration take over and the Generals crack under the pressure?

It is so very interesting and is in part why I like the west game so much even though there are some issues like this. Is it true to say that if problematic players (a real army does have problematic soldiers as well) if this is what players actually are, can't really be solved with game rules or moderation? It may need to come from within the community itself. Not referring to reporting over the top abusiveness such as with profanity. There can be at anytime, children playing the west game as well. I'm referring to in game annoyances. It can be expected that some players will not listen to reason or they may wish to play a different game within the game. There is only a limited amount of in-game tools to use to counter.

Thank you all so much for explaining this in such great detail. I'm still allowing lulumcnoob's posting's to sink in.
 

DeletedUser15368

We follow the leaders' orders because they've taken the time and effort to organise a battle for everyone, to rank that battle, and then type out the orders. Anyone who's willing to put in that work on your behalf deserves a shot as leader, stick together as a team for now and they can be judged and guided later. Probably less than 5% of players are leadership material (meaning willingness + ability) , a few current leaders that I know about aren't leadership material but we have such a shortage, that we have to accept people who are willing to do it regardless of ability. It's too important of a role to be left blank in most cases and obviously people can learn or be trained in leadership given enough time and a suitable teacher.

I don't think anyone is under any illusion, or pretend that they are some sort of real general leading real soldiers into battle, no. We all treat it like a game we play in our free time for fun, and since some of us are roughly a decade older now than when we started playing, we have a lot less free time. If someone, adult or child, decides to mess with things, a lot of us simply don't have the time to waste sorting it out, and stopping playing on a problematic world either temporarily or permanently is the easier option than living with a troll that actual real boomer adults give attention to.

This prospect is incredibly worrying for the PvP scene, as we already struggle for numbers, losing leaders is even worse because then you can't even have battles.

There's definitely room for RP in this game, but the basic features need to be functioning to facilitate it, otherwise we are just RPing as gamblers waiting for the next dopamine rush from the next tombola, and I'm not willing to let Inno win that fight and turn the player-base into nothing but online casino addicts for them to prey on.
 
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Poker Alice

Well-Known Member
I don't think anyone is under any illusion, or pretend that they are some sort of real general leading real soldiers into battle, no. We all treat it like a game
I think I can respectfully disagree with you on this point. I have a specific conception of what role play actually is or can be. There are different variations of it. You did get me to search for an accepted definition however. I think it might be...

A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game; abbreviated RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. ... These electronic games sometimes share settings and rules with tabletop RPGs, but emphasize character advancement more than collaborative storytelling. - en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Role-playing_game

In the west, the developers seem to have had the most fun with the storytelling telling component. Your next words after treat it like a game were "we play". But somehow play here unless I am wrong and don't mind admitting so if I am is that the many of the mature players think they are not actually playing a game at all? This makes me think that the training, the instructions, the teaching component is actually real as well. While the subject of Role Playing Games is not the original topic I see it as somewhat connected.

Certainly knowledge of how the game functions can be a shared. Not everyone wants to read through help tutorials (they are really good though) but would rather ask for help from fellow players new and old. Even if the assistance was wrong, having communication with other players makes the game enjoyable. But I need say something here regarding the mature players (respectfully) who struggle so much with this game.

Case in point:

When I first started playing this game I attempted to use the market place to purchase items but didn't notice the small yellow ! indicator. I received a telegram which stated I was a problematic thief. I was stunned and shocked. My reaction was I apologized in a telegram and then was able to deliver the items to the correct person. That was the end of it.

The reason I was shocked by the telegram was that if it had indicated that was going to be shot down dead in the street, I would have also obliged to return the items but also would have done so laughing. However, I sensed that this person was serious and not "playing" a game at all. I felt sorry for her. My thoughts over this kind of interaction in a game also conflicted with my own self-respect.

"Who really are these mature players? How dare these "people" behind a keyboard actually degrade me by calling me names. Who do they think are? Why, they don't know me at all and so really don't have the authority, nor are they showing to me now that they have the proper qualifications to teach me anything about moralities ."

How role play relates to this topic is that I am suggesting that perhaps some of the older mature players have forgotten over time that regardless of what happens in or to a game it is actually still just a game?
 

DeletedUser15368

I would say that the market thing is an example of the community having to police itself, theres no direct player to player trading so the only way the market really works is if everyone is honourable and respects the little yellow i.
 

RaiderTr

Well-Known Member
Few are fine and should be, but just too many things to "police" ourselves in this game..
Thanks Inno for that (for lacking the simplest yet most crucial features)

> Play the game for fun
> End up dealing with problematic people every day.
 
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Poker Alice

Well-Known Member
Yep, I completely agree, a solution to safeguard against the outlaw element is to meet up in town with the person you are trading with, so it can be done quickly. Otherwise there might be a risk to be robbed. I suppose there is the bounty option if communication doesn't help solve a thief problem. I may come back to read once again this topic on forts. You took time to write here and I thank you so much for explaining.
 
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