GUIDANCE FOR OVERHEAD AND STAFF USERS [Doc]

FEDERATION – GUIDANCE FOR OVERHEAD AND STAFF USERS
————————————————–
July 23 1995
Introduction
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi! – and welcome to Federation. This document is intended to provide
guidance for overhead and staff account holders on AOL who are playing
Federation (referred to as OHs in this document).

As an OH playing Federation you are in a privileged position, because
we do not get paid for your usage. Because you are in a position of
privilege, you have obligations to AOL and the Federation team that paying
players do not.

At the moment, we allow any OH to play Fed, but bear in mind that if your
presence in Fed starts to cause us problems then you will be locked out of
the game, and if we get too many problems with OHs we will simply stop all
OHs from playing.

The purpose of this document is to set out guidelines on what is
appropriate behaviour, so we don’t have to take such draconian steps!
Screen names
~~~~~~~~~~~~
AOL Management has asked that you do not use your work screen names to play
Federation. You should set up another screen name to use as your character.

Please do not use names that have the word Fed or Host in them, these are
reserved for game staff.
Who’s Who in Fed
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Federation Game Staff are:

Hazed (Fi Craig) – that’s me. I manage the game.
ALenton (Alan Lenton) – the designer.
FedSys (Nick Osborn) – the techdroid (in the game, he shows up as
Cryptosporidium but mail should go to FedSys).

Then we have a team of Game Hosts, who are my assistants and help in making
sure the game runs smoothly. Hosts are marked as such on the <WHO> list,
and an up-to-date list is contained at the end of each news bulletin.

Please bear in mind that no matter what your position on the rest of AOL,
when you are playing Federation you must defer to the requests of the Game
Staff and Hosts. They are in charge.

Hosts and other players have no way of telling if you are using a non-
paying account. Game Staff can tell, but we will keep this knowledge
confidential.

When Staff or Hosts are in Fed, they often turn off IMs to prevent
distractions. As an OH, your IMs will still go through to will probably be
ignored if they are busy in the game.
The Business of Fed
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Federation is run to make money, and although we all love the game,
ultimately it is a business. It is run by Interactive Broadcasting,
which is separate from AOL.

Because we don’t receive payment when you play the game, the benefit that
we get from having you in the game entirely rests on how you behave. If
your actions in the game help other players and enhance the game, then we
benefit; if your actions upset paying customers and make them decide not
to play Fed any more, then we lose.

Examples of things that OHs must not do:

– don’t hunt down and kill newbods for fun. If you want to fight, pick on
players who can fight back. If I see an OH killing players lower than
Trader rank, I will not be happy! Even if a player is being thoroughly
obnoxious, you are not to form or join revenge posses. Leave it to paying
players, or Game Hosts if necessary, to deal with the situation.

– don’t engage in ANY fighting against players in Sol. There is too much
risk of stray shots hitting innocent passers-by. If you want to want to
fight, take it to Arena space. If you are fighting mobiles, make sure you
specify the mobile’s name rather than using <FIRE TL>, to avoid the risk
of players being accidentally hit.

– don’t give players misleading advice which leads to them dying or losing
money. It’s fun to give snappy answers to annoying players who ask too many
questions, but if your joke answer results in them deciding not to play any
more because they’ve just lost their persona, I will not be happy!

These are just some examples, to give you the idea of the kind of behaviour
that can make our paying customers decide to leave the game. Remember,
paying customers are valuable. Without them, there would be no Fed at all.
Business Decisions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sometimes you may not like the effect a change to the game code has on your
rank. Please remember that any modifications we make to the game are taken
with a view to enhancing the game as a whole and making sure the different
ranks stay in balance. If you are concerned that we have made a wrong
decision, by all means tell us that you disagree with a change we’ve made,
but do it in private by e-mail, not over open comm, by posting on the bar
board, or posting in the message board.
Keep a Good Attitude
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One of the worst things an OH player can do is to make paying customers
resent you by flaunting the fact that you don’t have to pay to play Fed.
As an OH, you may be able to spend more time in Fed keeping your factories
running or whatever, so you do have an advantage, but please don’t rub
players’ noses in it.

In Fed, being an OH doesn’t make you anything special, so please don’t act
the bully or the snob. Yes, new players can be annoying with all their
questions, but you were a new player once and you were probably just as
annoying!

Rivalries are the stuff of which games such as Fed are made, particularly
if you are role-playing a character. There is nothing wrong with an OH
having a long-standing rivalry with another player, but there is a line
over which you should take care not to step. You cross that line when you
set out to destroy another player’s character, or his/her enjoyment of the
game. A player should never feel that they can’t enter the game without
having to go through a shooting match (or shouting match) with you.

Paying players have invested a lot of money in building up their
characters, not to mention the time involved. They are paying to be
entertained and you as an OH should not be destroying the value of that
entertainment.

Remember that both the Federation policy and the AOL TOS state that you
shouldn’t harrass other players. What exactly constitutes harrassment is
often a matter of opinion, but as an OH player you have to be doubly
careful not to prevent people from enjoying their time in Fed.
Lending a Hand
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you enjoy playing Federation, we would be grateful if you could help to
make the game an even better environment, particularly for new players. If
there are no Hosts on the game, or if they are snowed under dealing with
new players, it would help if you would tune to Channel 1 and spend a
little time answering some of the questions.

However, you should beware of being too generous to other players. Don’t
be tempted to give away large amounts of groats, because in effect your
groats came to you “free” and you could very easily unbalance the Galactic
economy. Neither should you just hand out the answers to puzzles. Fed is
a game where players have to find things out and discover the answers for
themselves. If you make it too easy for them to do puzzles, the process
will become devalued.
Allocating Resources
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are in the game a number of objects and locations which are needed
by players completing puzzles for advancement. OHs should think twice
before doing anything which would deny a paying player trying to complete
a promotion puzzle access to these objects and locations.

This is not to say that you can never hide, or hang on to an object another
player wants – a number of lower level players have made a very successful
career out of selling vital objects to high level players :), but you
should be sensitive about whether you are taking it too far.

It will occasionally happen that external constraints mean that we have to
introduce some form of rationing. In that case, unfortunately, preference
will be given to paying players. We will try to ensure that this doesn’t
prevent OHs from moving up the game along with their peers, but we can’t
make any promises in advance. If we have to limit what OHs can do in the
game, we’ll send mail to the relevant players.

There will (at least at first) be a limit on the number of players allowed
into Fed at once time, and if the game starts to fill up it may prevent OHs
from entering.

If you are asked to leave the game by a IB staff member (Game Hosts won’t
know you are an OH), please do immediately without arguement. You can
assume that there is some emergency going on, so please don’t bombard the
staff member with questions, either by tight beam or IM, about what’s going
on. If the request that you leave the game doesn’t give a time when you can
come back, you should stay away for at least an hour.
Bugs and other creepy crawlies
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From time to time bugs <err cough, ‘features’> do creep into the game. They
are, unfortunately, a fact of life. Players are encouraged to report such
bugs, with the reward that the first player to do so will get to keep their
ill-gotten gains. OH players, however, are under an -*obligation*- to
report any bug that they find using the bug report form before they leave
for that session. They are also under an obligation to not tell other
players how to exploit the bug for their own gain.
To sum up
~~~~~~~~~

99% of this document is just common sense, its purpose is to make you think
about these things -*before*- you get yourself into an irretrievable
situation, not to stop you having fun playing Federation. With the
application of a modicum of good sense OHs should be able to get as
much fun out of the game as paying players!

The basic rule, that everything here boils down to, is: Don’t Cause Hazed
Any Trouble.

If you are unsure about the exact interpretation of these guidelines, talk
to me or send me mail, or talk to one of the Game Hosts.

We have enjoyed working with OHs and AOL staff to bring Fed online, and
look forward to your continuing participation in the game.

Have fun 🙂

Hazed (Fi Craig)
for Federation and Interactive Broadcasting