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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Steven's Ban on 3rd Party content
Leviojima
Member, Alpha Two
HELLO ALL
In the Divine Order Discord Server we have been discussing the development of Ashes. The topic of 3rd party add on we broke out into a discussion on whether 3rd party content ban will be good for players or bad.
Views:
Majority - The ban is good for the game
Minority - The ban can be bad for the game since it frequently hurts the handicapped community.
Where do you fall in the discussion we would love to hear from you!
In the Divine Order Discord Server we have been discussing the development of Ashes. The topic of 3rd party add on we broke out into a discussion on whether 3rd party content ban will be good for players or bad.
Views:
Majority - The ban is good for the game
Minority - The ban can be bad for the game since it frequently hurts the handicapped community.
Where do you fall in the discussion we would love to hear from you!
0
Comments
There was recently a story about a one handed gamer who was banned in a game for using a 3rd party macro program to control his keyboard bindings while using his mouse. We do not want as a community to harm people who have less accessibility to the game.
We do not think that it is bad to create a fair base level to play but we do watch hopefully that the Ashes team will have work around in place for people who have difficulties playing MMO's at no fault of their own.
EDIT: What I said above applies to full able-bodied players who use addons to gain some kind of advantage over others. As to what to do for handicapped players, in my opinion this should be handled on a case by case basis by Intrepid.
I understand that for the average player (like me) bans and other forms of reprimanding are 100% Valid and justified. I only bring up the issue because I do have friends with missing limbs and other disabilities. I do not claim to have ANY answers on how to resolve the issues, and was hoping that by bringing the topic to the discussion that there might be others out there with helpful knowledge.
I would like to make this a firm statement: I am NOT judging Ashes or the Ashes team with this discussion. This comes from the desire to allow as many players as possible to play the game with us.
For that specific example, was the player who got banned only using the software to rebind the keys, or create multi-button macros? I myself use a razer gamepad which means I use the razer synapse software to rebind the buttons to the gamepad. However, I only have one action bound to each button.
I see no problem in doing that as I still have to press the same number of buttons as everyone else to play the game, I just press different buttons.
I understand this point. My point was not that 3rd party content should be encouraged. Personally, I hope that the team has developed with the understanding that one handed players will be at a strict disadvantage over other players.
It's been brought up before (I made a video about it not too long ago in fact). When the game gets closer to launch I would hope those kinds of players would be willing to reach out to Intrepid for help first.
I am glad that there has been talk about this and the team is continuing to try addressing this moving forward. Creating the discussion was the only point of the post.
I am excited to see the game continue to evolve between now and release.
Sounds like there will be no compromise.
The thing about many that abuses games, systems or hacks, glitches etc, is that they have no real interest in the game itself. How many have not heard or seen the chat comment from someone being reported with
" Oh go on..i have more accounts " or " laaawl noob...i dun care " etc etc.
The only way to punish someone is to remove what they are trying to gain access too.
* A player cheating in PVP = Remove all PVP levels, rewards, titles etc, and offer them a permanent title named Dishonourable worm.
* A player dealing in online buying Gold / Stones / Gems etc as in monetary value to benefit in game = Empty their bank and wallets fully. Leave nothing. Also, add a permanent title of Prospered by Greed.
* A player is constantly reported for the use of profanity, behaving bad in general and simply just trolling and spreading a poor atmosphere all around them = Remove all options of them to group up, PVP in groups, raid etc etc. Leave them to wander alone until their reports stop by their own actions of becoming a better person.
Last but NOT least, Outriders have a superb way of dealing with cheaters. They brand the cheaters entire screen with a watermark of the word, Cheater, and they cannot remove it. Sure, some will ignore it, but streaming with that will tell the truth on what sort of " player " that is.
That also achieves your goal of "remove what they are trying to gain access too (sic)". Perhaps also list banned player names as a warning to others.
A full ban is absolute the best outcome, but if there will be any sort of " less " severe outcomes, removing what they want i feel will be felt.
The player in the OP could simply show Intrepid what it is they are using, and why they are using it, get approval for it, and then carry on with their day.
The only reason someone would feel the need to utilize a third party addon to play the game is b/c Intrepid failed to give them an alternative.
While this is true, imo it is unreasonable to expect Intrepid to provide for all disabilities. That is precisely why companies exist to provide products and services to assist such people - individual developers simply cant do it all.
Steven wants to exclude 3rd party apps. There are a number of ways it could come up and ways to properly deal with it.
Possible problem cases:
1. Some kind of drm
2. Players reporting who don't know the differently abled players scenario or are being blatantly troll
3. Auto detect and reporting
Possible solutions:
1. Intrepid could provide their own in house controller support and tune it to the needs of the community in question.
2. Intrepid could develop a whitelist with strong guidance from the differently abled community(the most reasonable low resource solution)
3. Case by case positive flagging of players who get exceptions implemented by appealing to the mods.
As Noaani points out, its unreasonable to expect a small company relative to the large project to devote something so resource intensive as 'catering to all.' However, I would personally be disappointed if there was no controller support in the long run, which is the main way to solve this particular issue and make able bodied controller users happy as well.
Drm of some kind will probably be implemented, making it more likely to cause problems (as intended) for 3rd party apps. This makes white listing difficult to garuntee. The whitelist will become a constant political mindfield and take up hr and dev resources. Endless whining from able bodied people to boot about 'why cant I have x tho'. Not having one cuts off a lot of toxicity routes and doesn't pose a resource drain. Still, theres plenty of available free software that helps a lot of these problems out there and in use. If dev resources are scarce, white listing existing solutions is the cheapest solution in the short term.
If a reporting or detection system is used I would hope mods would be trained to be sensitive towards the topic and would hope they had a system for prioritizing based on this type of case to get appealed to a human mod so it gets resolved quickly (no one likes a youtube copystrike type scenario.) Mods cost money, and are expensive. But necessary any way. Might as well implement a way to manually flag exclusions to your detection software so they aren't constantly handling repeat cases of things that are case by case approved of. This is probably the 'kindest' way to handle the problem without adding too much dev time. But its the most reliant on company culture and human judgement.
In reality a lot of these scenarios and solutions will probably be considered and probably closer to beta. The ban is probably not going to be so cut and dry. And if it is, there's still solutions.
Exceptions for people with exceptional circumstances.
Otherwise you really are exposing yourself to vulnerabilities.
The choice becomes:
I hear people saying addons are indetectable and others saying you will get a perma.
The secret is noone really knows until the game has come out so this is just speculations and discussions.
As an example of what I mean, I mostly talk about combat trackers. I have successfully parsed Stevens combat from a livestream.
Detect that.
The kinds of things people are talking about here interact directly with the game, and usually do so in a way to assist in controls. By their very nature, these things are detectable, and simply can not be made in any way where this is not the case.
This is why people that do rely on such things (I have played with several people that need such assistance) are best served by contacting Intrepid directly - closer to release - and saying what software they want to run with the game, and specifically why they wish to run it.
Most developers/publishers are more than happy to allow such things, if it is organized before hand. However, if you run it, get caught and then try and get retroactive permission to run it (as was the case in the OP), things are less likely to go your way.
This is not how you reduce stigma. When you respond to issues with "taboo", then you increase stigma by implying that it is offensive.
Addressing the issue directly, privately and giving people a real human to handle their case is not the same as insulting/shaming/discriminating against them.
1. While we can make exceptions of the minority we should never make rules that effect the majority for the minority.
2. Meet my personal hero Brolylegs. As a fighting game player most people dont know Brolylegs. The fighting game community is incredibly competitive and there are no handicaps for the handicapped who wish to participate.
3.This man was/is considered one of the best streetfighter players in the world. If you google him you will notice that he plays with a ps4 pad but dosent have hands that work so he plays with his literal face.
4. It's in our nature to want to help those we perceive as less than us or disadvantaged. This is nothing more than arrogance and the bigotry of low expectations. If Brolylegs can win world tournaments using his lips and tongue than anyone can play any game with any disadvantage at the same standard as anyone else.
5. that being said its really not up to us is it. Intrepid will have to decide how they wish to handle this issue.
The person you are referring to has had their disability since birth. This means they have had literally their entire life to work on muscle and nerve refinement for other parts of their body.
Someone that loses their hand at the age of 30 will literally never be able to do what he has done, no matter the time and effort put in. It straight up isn't physiologically possible.
You are trying to place all people with disabilities in to one basket.
Don't do that.