So, there's a big thread about information sharing on the other site, where people are fairly upset and vocal.

It's obvious that CF's system and culture relies on and encourages an information market sustained by information scarcity. Along with that culture comes rules and regulations and various levels of enforcement.

For clarification, I was hoping the staff could chime in on their current policies regarding information sharing of any kind. This could be information regarding the players of active or deceased characters, wands and preps, quest knowledge, religion knowledge, ranking knowledge, regear sets, class knowledge, and so on.

So, here are the questions:

What kind of information is considered taboo or illegal (no one should share it with any other players in any way ever) to share?

What kind of information is considered acceptable to share publicly, on a wiki or a website or on forums?

What kind of information is considered acceptable to share privately, between friends?

Further, regarding all of the above, what kinds of information does the staff care the most about limiting/controlling, and what do you care the least about? How important is information control in general to the staff, and if the answer is anything more than "fairly", why is it important?

Also, because I realize opinions probably vary from one staff member to another, is there an agreed-upon staff policy regarding these preferences?

>What kind of information is considered taboo or illegal (no
>one should share it with any other players in any way ever) to
>share?

I don't think there's really any information that shouldn't be shared between any other characters in game as long as the character giving the information could reasonably know it.


>
>What kind of information is considered acceptable to share
>publicly, on a wiki or a website or on forums?

I like the way information is currently controlled regarding objects on the wiki/dio's. I really don't think any sorts of pills/potions/wands/talismans/scrolls should be placed on the wiki, as I'd like to reward those that take the time to explore areas and remember where some things that require more creative use are.

I especially agree with not posting about "new" areas and things because 1) it removes some of the shine that they might have and 2) oftentimes the people posting their first impressions have things quite wrong, imagining things that are or aren't there (for example, new conjurer familiars).

I know that if my area were to get mapped out on the wiki within a week of it going in, I would be a little annoyed. And if, say, someone also posted that you needed to kill the orc chieftain to get the key to open the panel to get a resist holy potion, I would probably want to change the potion to something boring like armor. But that's just me.

This is my opinion, and not that of the staff in general.

I'm with Grobbak - more information is better. I use maps and item lists all the time (in fact, widely available information is one of the things I really like about MMORPGs). I have a tendency to get stuck with my characters, and outside information does wonders for getting me back on track.

I've gotten a few levels today - where's a good place for me to go explore tomorrow? Which town were those XYZ potions sold in, again? Good lord I'm level 20 and need to upgrade my fine leather leggings. The cabal situation is grim, where was that place I used to go hide in two characters ago?

Said another way, I don't want to waste my hour here and there (less now that I'm doing imm stuff) trying to remember which mob in what area had those leggings I remember using one time. I'd rather just do a quick search offline and then go fight my way there. Offline information helps me figure out a direction for my next gameplay session. Who knows what will actually happen - but if I have a goal to, say, go to Area X and try to acquire Item Z, then I am much more motivated to log in because I feel like there is a chance for advancement.

I do concur with Daevryn about major preps like ABS and explore areas, questy stuff, as well as "new" areas, being held under tight wraps. I'd add maze solutions to this list of undisclosables, also.

At the same time, I think it'd be neat to have an official item database with the majority of unlimited and a good chunk of limited items listed, with stats and area of origin...including the basic preps. I wish to god I had made a list of wands, potions, scrolls, and pills for sale in the various vendors I've explored over the years.... because I've forgotten them all now.

The CF purist might disagree with me, but there you have it.

>At the same time, I think it'd be neat to have an official
>item database with the majority of unlimited and a good chunk
>of limited items listed, with stats and area of
>origin...including the basic preps.

Well, there was CFI, which I think is long since abandoned but is some sort of shared database. Might contact the author about that.

Personally what I'm currently working on (for my personal use) is a postgresql database that CMUD acceses via lua to store and retrieve stuff (like item ids, maps, etc) as I discover it. If I ever finish this and the staff decides it would be fine for everyone to share I wouldn't mind sending my DB and/or sharing the lua code. Obviously that's not the same as an official DB that is always up to date, but at least it doesn't require any effort on the staff to implement.

Although if the staff does ever want an officially open DB, that would pretty much kick ass.

Personally I decided to go this route which seems like overkill because in the past I've always been way too lazy to write anything down, so after 15 years of playing inconsistently and with large breaks, I still basically only know where the crappiest of basic preps are (like the big-city reduce that has like a 1 or 2 hour duration).

I'll give you my answers which do not necessarily represent the position of the staff as a whole.

Stuff I'd rather not see shared:

1) Area explore stuff

2) A/B/S (related corrolary: anything that relates to limited preps may not be in your best interest to share -- it's not totally unheard of for us to realize that X stoneskin prep is so easy to get that you'd be crazy to ever fight without it / ever use anything else / etc. because someone's posted about it and subsequently change it)

I don't have a problem with this being shared IC, as long as it's actually IC. Rattling off a list of 30 wand locations to someone your character despises doesn't qualify, nor does rattling off a list of wand locations in places you've never been. But if you want to tell like another mage in your cabal places you've looked or places you've found things, I think that's cool.

3) Stuff about super-new areas even if they're not area explore. I remember getting beat up by people with the shocking rings when the area they're from first came in and it was cool to me that people that had explored that area knew something I didn't.

I mean, that kind of stuff will get around eventually, but in my ideal world, you've got a couple month window to explore a new area before you hear too much about it. In that sense my position on this isn't a lot different from, say, movie spoilers. You don't need to keep the ending to King Kong a secret from me now, but I'd have been upset if someone had ruined the Sixth Sense for me the day it came out.

I don't really have a problem with people talking about that stuff IC in the game, I just would prefer a bit of lag between a new area opening up and a map being posted.

4) OOC only: Stuff about other characters' cabal/specialization/alignment choices, inasmuch as it's reasonable. I realize this will never be perfect and I enjoy reading logs as much as the next person. This, too, gets around naturally anyway and I'm okay with that -- I'd just rather not ever see the 'this is the list of people in Battle' or 'here are all the current warriors with Enigma' wiki.

5) IC only: it's a pet peeve of mine to see characters share information that they very obviously couldn't possibly have in character. I struggle with this because overall I think more stuff in game is better, but it bothers me to see lowbie characters talking about areas they've never been to and probably could not have any prayer of surviving, or level 10 warrior spouting off lists of A/B/S wand locations. Granted, 99% of this is already covered by my items 1 and 2 above.

You are ok with plague malison and an item that moves people to the past being common knowledge?

Because that will be carnage for newbies, and powerhouses will never die.

We could add the restriction that anything you can't get from "identify" is off-limits. That would cover the second item you mentioned.

If that would be the result of it being commonly known then it might be overpowered?

But the difference is, no one who has found it so far goes to town on newbies with it.

And unban me on dio's.

The way it is now, a few pros know this stuff and have a huge advantage because of it~

Newbies have never even heard of either of these, and can therefore never take advantage of them.

In what way will sharing the information, so that both pros and newbies have equal chance at using these preps and developing countermeasures for people using them, make the balance more uneven?

I don't really get it.

The only thing sharing this stuff seems to do would be to deny the few pros who know about these things (i.e. you) the ability to abuse them more often. It would give newbies (who originally had no knowledge of these things) a chance to find them and use them, and pros (who originally did have knowledge of these things) less of a chance to find them and use them, because they're limited and newbies will be using them too.

In what way does this somehow help the pros and diminish the newbies?

The reality is not many of the "pros" know this stuff. Not many of the ooc groups.

They tend to be the ones that go to town if given access to this kind of info. They also tend not to find it because they focus completely on the info pooled by their group.

A newbie with plague malison on him isn't going to be able to survive by teleporting.

A top end player still should.

In addition, those players that cheat (and there are plenty -- I could name a couple of the uber-chars that you think are great that cheated) will find it easier to leverage this info to their advantage.

In what ways do you think they cheated?

We've already established that the act of sharing information unto itself isn't considered cheating.

They asked me to log on and help them get silent tower gear.

They asked someone I know to log on and help them pk for charges.

They logged off to avoid difficult ranges.

You're probably be ok with that. After all, I'm just being "elitist" by objecting to it.

No, I'm not okay with cheating. I'm okay with sharing information. In the context of your post, it sounded like you were implying that these people had shared information/received information, and were thus cheating, in your mind. If that had been the only thing they did, I would disagree with you; sharing information isn't cheating. However, you're correct, two of those three examples are clearly cheating.

Although, as far as I know logging off to avoid difficult ranges isn't illegal, it's just cheap.

Additionally, I wouldn't call your line of thinking "elitist" so much as outdated. When we had more players I can see how it would have been applicable, but I think it's more harmful to today's CF than helpful.

Is against the rules as per the helpfiles.

Admittedly imms seem to be turning an increasingly blind eye to it.

Sharing info is, in many cases, cheating. Info re explore areas. Info re who is on. Info re abs.

I define cheating as being against the rules set by the imms, by the way.

What's permitted on Dio's is different because the rules there don't get updated as often. However, I'm sure you'll agree that Dio's is less restrictive than these official forums.

Having checked the helpfile, it appears to be different to how I remember. It used to say something about using ooc means to avoid ic consequences.

Now it just specifically mentions dropping link. So I guess selective logging is now permitted.

One rule mentions quitting to avoid consequences. To me, that means logging off because you don't like the look of the range.

One rule mentions that, where you know people, you treat their characters the same as any other. That, to me, precludes you sharing info around a group but not with those outside of the group.

>One rule mentions quitting to avoid consequences. To me,
>that means logging off because you don't like the look of the
>range.

I am sure its about dropping link in pk.

Saying that its forbidden to log off because you dont like the range is pretty hefty.

Your character, in character, should treat your friends' characters the same as any other. This I agree with. But I don't see how that applies to OOC information sharing through any other means, outside the game.

Additionally, whose to say I don't have the right to only share information with only a select group of friends, as opposed to a public medium? It's my knowledge, gained however I like, to be used however I like. Sure, using it to bolster a perma is different, but assuming I'm not attempting to influence the success of their specific character from an OOC standpoint, I don't see anything wrong with being exclusive about how I share my knowledge. E-mailing a quest list to my buddy John Doe, who is playing some random character I may or may not know about, is different than saying "Hey, Joe, let's log on and run quests together."

Granted, I think public information sharing is far more beneficial to the game and the community as a whole, but I don't think any kind of rules or guidelines governing what people talk about in private is feasible or even reasonable.

That passing a player info ooc is the same as passing their character info ic, in the sense that doing it ooc is treating them differently unless you'd also do it ic?

Put another way, your scion telling the fortie where to get protection from metals is not something you'd do ic, and is treating their character differently from how you'd treat any other character (given that I doubt you'd share this info with your enemies who you didn't know ooc).

I see what you're saying, I just think it's a very liberal interpretation of the rules.

CF is the only game I have ever played in which people seem to think it's okay to make rules governing how players behave and interact outside of the game. It's hard for me to believe that relaxing these kinds of restrictions in CF would bring about any kind of significant or irreversible damage.

>You are ok with plague malison and an item that moves people
>to the past being common knowledge?
>
>Because that will be carnage for newbies, and powerhouses will
>never die.

More or less, yeah. These fall into the broad category of things that it would make me happier if people figured out for themselves, but really I wouldn't remove either if they were more common knowledge. They're both in areas that everyone should know pretty well already, and if you don't, your lack of that knowledge is already a pretty serious handicap.

I've doublechecked that the limitations on the past thing are consistent with other transportation stuff as necessary and generally is what I think are fair. If it's ultimately too good, then it's probably too good for everyone and needs to be addressed.

The plague malison item I really don't think is as bad as you do. On paper it sounds scary, but in practice... I don't think it's that great. It was part of my arsenal the last time I played an A-P (I too, had been somewhat salivating after finding the item and had been waiting for a chance to put it into action) and it just wasn't that great.

A) Only necromancers and anti-paladins really want it; most of the other cases for its use are too niche (e.g., I'm a transmuter and I'm going to hope to KO people with disrupt organ, then brandish this plague staff, then get PM on them)

B) Getting the item is essentially incompatible with 2/3 of the cabal choices for that class, and poses enough of a risk/difficulty for the third or uncaballeds that I think this also somewhat limits it

C) It doesn't cast at a very high level; mostly, if you can get the item reasonably easily/quickly, people in your PK range will tend to make the save. At hero, burning through the whole wand without getting even someone terribly geared for saves to be affected isn't at all uncommon. Sure, you can carry a bunch of them, but there you're burning time, which can be a precious resource when someone is slept.

D) In practice, people who you sleep, who no one comes to save, who you actually have the time to do everything you want to either have an escape plan that's going to let them take care of plague, or they're screwed anyway. In-between cases where PM pushes them over the edge, in my opinion, are really rare.

It's not worthless, and in some situations it will get you a kill you could miss, but I think the risk/investment/reward ratio on that item is not that good.

Let's not get carried away with how strong plague malison is. It doesn't last that long anyways. If some new thing comes out and becomes common knowledge and starts wrecking people then the IMM's will be very quick to fix it. I think the IMM's here balance the game better than any other game I've ever played, and really do a fantastic job of eliminating "magic bullets", whether it is a skill/spell or a ranking area or a certain prep that you'd be an idiot to not use. Everything I've ever used to the fullest extent possible has been changed in short order. These items aren't as secret as you think, and most often people are just too lazy to get them. Good players are going to kill bad players, immolation flasks or malison wands or talismans or super pendants or whatever.

You're usually a good poster but you have been on a real cold streak as of late. Your position over at QHCF about not allow return wand locations on the board is pretty dumb. You mention that it is something that (the VIP's) decided and hide behind that, well, what do YOU think? Do you really think that it should not be allowed? If that's the case, then you stand alone.

The argument you proposed about it making an AP too good and that a charged up AP with return wands will be super deadly is flawed. DO you really think someone who can't find a return wand is going to be accumulating 75+ charges? I don't think any reasonable person would find the knowledge of one of the most basic preps in wand form something that should be concealed. Temper your judgement with a little common sense.

>Let's not get carried away with how strong plague malison is.
> It doesn't last that long anyways. If some new thing comes
>out and becomes common knowledge and starts wrecking people
>then the IMM's will be very quick to fix it. I think the
>IMM's here balance the game better than any other game I've
>ever played, and really do a fantastic job of eliminating
>"magic bullets", whether it is a skill/spell or a ranking area
>or a certain prep that you'd be an idiot to not use.
>Everything I've ever used to the fullest extent possible has
>been changed in short order. These items aren't as secret as
>you think, and most often people are just too lazy to get
>them. Good players are going to kill bad players, immolation
>flasks or malison wands or talismans or super pendants or
>whatever.
>

Generally, yes. But the other player has -some- chance of survival. (Newbs eventually pick up on carrying teleport, but not cure blind until much later.) Plague malison drops that to about zero when coupled with poison & bleeding.


>You're usually a good poster but you have been on a real cold
>streak as of late. Your position over at QHCF about not allow
>return wand locations on the board is pretty dumb. You
>mention that it is something that (the VIP's) decided and hide
>behind that, well, what do YOU think?

My job isn't to do what I think. It's to implement the rules. If I did what I thought, people would be whining that it isn't consistent with the rules.

In fact, VIPS already exercise judgement about the extent to which character's identities is leaked on the forum. What happens? They get criticised for it. (Whereas my approach has been to delete posts that do this.)

> Do you really think
>that it should not be allowed? If that's the case, then you
>stand alone.
>

I do think that plague malison should not be spread outside of the game. Similarly with some of the items with hidden effects.

>The argument you proposed about it making an AP too good and
>that a charged up AP with return wands will be super deadly is
>flawed. DO you really think someone who can't find a return
>wand is going to be accumulating 75+ charges?

No. That's not what I was saying. What I was saying is that a return wand enables people to accumulate 75 charges who otherwise would fail to.

> I don't think
>any reasonable person would find the knowledge of one of the
>most basic preps in wand form something that should be
>concealed. Temper your judgement with a little common sense.
>

It's a rule. If the rule changes, then I'll implement it differently. That's something currently under discussion.

But I have tried IC'ly to point out to players that they sound OOC and nobody cares.

The RP in this game is limited at best, because Imms pass out rewards to people who don't.

I don't think powergamers should get possitions, or extra exp at all. As long as they do, they will be around and you'll get things like #5.

I have tried and tried and tried to RP but while I get kudos from players, I can only recall a recent 400exp bonus for Kaskin.

Honestly, I think it would be better to power game and get all the glory, so why not talk like you're reading about the world from DIO's?

I'm probably on the opposite end of the spectrum in saying sharing in
general doesn't bother me at all. If we don't want something shared,
then we should have/or make it like the wand system. Doesn't really
matter if you know where all the wands are, you still have to go find
YOUR wands.

Then again, I'm not a power gamer, and when I played games like WoW
and EVE, I was always tabbing out for walk throughs and maps.
(hell, I still tab over for some diku-map loving). When I play
I want to have fun and not have to ask "how do I get to the past?"

I'm fairly certain my views do not represent the staff's as a whole.


G.