[content warning: I am a sarcastic prick, this tends to come out most when I am frustrated with authority figures who attempt to belittle me for not knowing as much as they do about whatever subject they are an authority in. Despite my own frustration I have attempted to use sarcasm to add a humorous edge in this post. It really isn't my intention to offend anybody and I hope my words can be taken with the humor I have intended.]
Hello Everyone,
I started a thread yesterday which was closed prematurely due to a mistake in protocol which I made. My fault. In my fervor to attain information about the rules of the game, I mentioned a certain "B"-word which is not to be discussed. That was my mistake. I am now fully informed of the rules and will refrain, to the best of my ability, from erring further.
Thank you to everyone who responded to that thread for your helpful advice. Moving forward, I will attempt to refrain from referring to any previous posts since, as we all know, it is against the rules to attempt to re-open closed threads.
Now I do have some completely independent questions concerning the rules, now that I know where to find them. Oh, just so everyone knows, If you are looking for the rules of the game, they are super easy to find. In actual fact, they are posted Everywhere. And there are approximately three paths to Everywhere:
1) if you are at the login page, and decide to explore that page rather than logging in, you will find four tabs down in the bottom half of the screen. If you open the second tab over, mind you, this is the "News" tab, not the "game" tab, or even the "community" tab, but the "news" tab (everyone know that the newest, hottest, coolest things about any game are its rules, so that seems the obvious place to look for the rules). Once you have opened the "news" tab, scroll all the way down to the bottom, click the "more..." link, then click the link to the "Game Rules Thread." Obviously, right. No-brainer.
2) You can also find this post by going to the forum directly. Mind you, it isn't going to be on your dashboard. However, when you are on your dashboard, you may notice several posts using text that you cannot read. If you are like me, you may decide that, since you don't speak or read any of those other languages, it would be a good idea to use the Language drop-down and select a specific language that you can read. WRONG, that is dead wrong. If you do this, you will not see the "Games Rules Thread" anywhere on your screen no matter how many folders you open nor how much you scroll through them. Instead, you must select the "international" language option. Then and only then will the "Games Rules Thread" be featured prominently on your screen. Though, I can't imagine anyone overlooking this possibility, as everyone knows that rules are universal and a person's location has no influence on what activities they are allowed to perform.
3) By far the simplest means of finding the rules is only available to those who are already active players, good for most of us, but not helpful if you are a prospective new player nor if you have misplaced your permission to play the game somehow... even if that was an accident. If you are an active player, you can access the "Games Rules Thread" through the "news" tab on your sidebar (of course the "news" thread, see above). Mind you this post occurred a mere couple of hours ago, so if you were looking for the game rules yesterday or the day before (or two weeks ago when you were a new player), it would have been no help at all. Thank you to the admins for making that information so accessible to new players.
Anyway, now that we have arrived at our destination, you will find this section in the rules:
Accounts
Each player may create multiple accounts per server. Should a player have more than one account (multi-accounting) or multiple players use the same internet connection on the same server (IP sharing), then this must be entered into the account settings of all affected accounts on the same server.
An account is always assigned to the owner of the email address and may only be used by one person. Proxy playing or trading accounts is thus not permitted.It is not permitted to create multiple accounts on speed servers.
IP sharing (max of 2 accounts with the same IP) is only permitted once per speed server.
So lets take this one step at a time: Each player may create multiple accounts per server. Ok, cool. no questions so far.
Should a player... yada yada... IP Sharing... yada yada... entered into the account settings of all affected accounts on the same server. Ok, so I'm logged in, I open my account settings... "change email" ...no... "Character description" ...no... "character picture," "Hide," "change password," "Delete account" .... Hmmm. No "IP Setting" at all... anywhere. Well maybe this "IP sharing" setting is an outdated feature that no longer exists. I don't know. moving on..
An account is assigned to an email address... no sharing... Ok, this all makes sense. I'd like to play this game with my family, but we all have different email addresses so that shouldn't be an issue.
OH WAIT, multiple accounts are not allowed on speed servers! Well what does that mean? I had no idea there were multiple kinds of servers. which is which? How do I choose? Quick, I'll make a new account and attempt to select a non-speed server.... but there is no option for that..... what do I do....?
OK, serious time. I've been pretty flippant in this post thus far and I hope it is taken with a bit of humility and humor and not an excessive amount of rage. (Who am I kidding, I'm sure the rage will come in copious amounts... what can I say: it's a skill.) But at this point I would like to make some serious observations and suggestions.
Finding the rules for playing BiteFight is not as straightforward for new players as veterans and admins may assume. This is not a bad thing. However the impression it gives is that atmosphere of the game will be pretty laid back. When the rules are shoved into your face from the get-go, you know you can expect some pretty serious moderator action. This can be intimidating for new players. On the other hand, If a person can play for two weeks without even stumbling over the actual rules, that person will be surprised, possibly to the point of dropping the game entirely, when, suddenly, they encounter serious moderator action in response to activity that seemed innocuous and certainly was not malicious. Creating the correct expectations in new players should be one of the highest priorities of game designers and administrators if they intend to grow their user base. It will greatly improve medium-to-long term retention.
Next there is the issue of server selection. This is apparently a very important decision that a BiteFight player is asked to make at a time when they have the least invested in the game and therefore the least amount of knowledge of it. Since this decision seems to be one that can have dire repercussions, the onus of informing the player of those possible repercussions is on the game designers and administrators. There really should be a page in which all available servers are listed along with the traits of those servers. Traits that should be included for each server are country, language, type (speed or otherwise), and a brief description. Ex: this server is a madhouse with no moderators at all, people share accounts, buy and sell accounts, have multiple accounts and even use bots, dupes and hacks. Ex: this is a highly competitive server with stringent rules (link provided) and excessive ban-hammery. Ex: This server is pretty low key, good for new players, with high amounts of role-play and a welcoming community. Then, once this page is created, all players should be highly encouraged to research their server before creating their account. If a player is informed that a server has stringent rules and decisive mods and that player decides to play on that server, then AND ONLY THEN is the onus of learning those rules on the player. If the importance of the rules and the dire effects of breaking them are not made clear up front, then a reasonable person can expect to be treated reasonably as long as they behave reasonably. This sort of reasonable treatment would probably include an inquiry or even a warning by a moderator if a player breaks a rule or gives the impression of having broken a rule rather than more decisive administrative action.
But these are just suggestions, and contain a bunch of built-in assumptions which may or may not be true. It may not be the intention of the game runners to encourage new players at all, in which case my observations and suggestions are completely wrong and probably indicate that they are doing exactly what they intend. I don't really know.
Now, I am not quitting the game or anything like that, and I really have no intention of even changing servers, however I am really curious now about what the different kinds of servers actually are. Are there any low-key, low-mod, RP-focused servers out there with relativity active users and clans?
Thanks again,
-Uff
