3. Room signs failing to prevent novice zones from appearing

Room signs failing to prevent novice zones from appearing


  • So the devs so far have stated that there are no rules for this ... but that the rules were strictly followed. Hm. 😕

    There is indeed a pretty clear statement towards the bottom of the Novice Area page: http://support.screeps.com/hc/en-us/articles/210342985-Novice-Areas

    That is not some random forum. That sure looks like part of the game's core docs to me.


  • @Logxen I get a strong feeling the devs are not native English speakers. This is, unfortunately, a source of continuous frustration, but it also means nitpicking on their choice of words is just inflaming everyone's spirits.

    From the context it feels more like what Artem was saying is:
    - controller signing is advisory and not a hard rule
    - Sergey was strictly following the rules for novice area generation

  • Culture

    I've been one of the first people to tell people not to nitpick over language, and to give the benefit of the doubt when language seems to be a barrier, but there's no excuse for their statements and the official docs to contradict their "shadow rules". In cases where mistakes occur they should be willing to work with us to solve them, which does not appear to be happening here.

  • Dev Team

    I think, one rule we may formalize is that your signing message should contain clear and reasonable date when you plan to claim this particular room. If you don’t have enough GCL, you should explicitly comment that you will drop some of your existing claims.

    So the devs so far have stated that there are no rules for this … but that the rules were strictly followed. Hm. 😕

    No rules regarding signing, I mean.

    That is not some random forum. That sure looks like part of the game’s core docs to me.

    Documentation is documentation, discussion is discussion. Discussion may eventually result in some documentation, or may not.

    Folks, it is Sunday evening. Let’s please take a timeout until tomorrow. I think we’ll come up with some compromise solution then.

  • Culture

    Artem- 

    This is a game. Most of us have jobs. We spend the week doing our jobs. We spend the weekend playing the game. By delaying until tomorrow you're essentially forcing me to wait a week. This isn't fair, especially since I opened a ticket with you on Friday- no one forced you guys to ignore this until now, but you're forcing me to live with your decisions.

     

    If there is certain data that should have been in the signatures it's your job to document that. I followed the rules and am now being punished for doing so, and frankly I expected more out of the admins here.


  • I stand with you on this subject Rob. The devs have mismanaged their relation to the community more than once. An area which could certainly use improvement. Personally, I like to imagine the Screeps devs like some basement hackers with serious social disabilities. Most devs I know have some "deficiencies" in this department.

    Whatever the case, my main desire is to temper the spirits a little bit. I feel your reaction could be qualified as out of bounds. Atlan was certainly a lot more justified to be outraged with that funny novice area which appeared multiple times. Check out the older thread, it's a real doozy.

  • Culture

    I agree with the players voice in this case.

    It's clear in the documentation that signing a room will make it noobzone-proof if it's been signed in the last 5 days. There is no way to misinterpret those rules.

    The noobzone in question will have noobs in it who will probably be bombarded with nukes/boosted creeps the second the walls go down, this is not good from a gameplay and noob experience perspective.

     

    I would highly suggest to NOT create noobzones in established worlds anymore. If you spawn outside a noobzone you should have code which can deal with attacks, and use safe-mode effectively. 

  • Dev Team

    I’d like to quote my post from that old PTR forum thread:

    Every day will be safe. I think even 2-3 days is a good estimate. We’ll add this to the documentation when this feature goes live.

    I clearly stated that in case if/when this rule becomes a thing, it is to be added to the documentation. It has not been added. The signing feature has been launched, but the “novice area signing rule” has not been introduced neither in the changelog nor documentation. You seem to have misinterpreted some ongoing non-finished discussion as an already established rule, and I apologize that I might be not very clear (English is not my native language indeed), but I think it should be obvious that forum contents cannot be considered as some strict game mechanic rules. Sometimes in hot discussions on the PTR forum I make diametrically opposite statements, while we are in the process of considering some complicated topics. But they only take effect when they make it to the docs, not while they are being discussed.

    It’s clear in the documentation that signing a room will make it noobzone-proof if it’s been signed in the last 5 days

    Could you please provide a link to the docs page containing such a rule?

  • Dev Team

    I would highly suggest to NOT create noobzones in established worlds anymore.

    It will make our world half-empty very soon, since many novice players simply stop playing, and their void zones cannot be fulfilled by nearby active players with the speed fast enough to make them populated.

  • Culture

    http://support.screeps.com/hc/en-us/articles/210342985-Novice-Areas

    enter image description here

  • Culture

    We've given you the link to the documentation repeatedly, and you've ignored it.

    http://support.screeps.com/hc/en-us/articles/210342985-Novice-Areas

    http://support.screeps.com/hc/en-us/articles/210342985-Novice-Areas

    http://support.screeps.com/hc/en-us/articles/210342985-Novice-Areas

     

    > If you don’t want some rooms to get transformed into Novice Areas, you should take care to reserve or at least sign them.

  • Dev Team

    I meant this rule:

    It’s clear in the documentation that signing a room will make it noobzone-proof if it’s been signed in the last 5 days

    Where in the documentation it says something about “5 days” and “noobzone-proof”?

  • Culture

    > It will make our world half-empty very soon, since many novice players simply stop playing, and their void zones cannot be fulfilled by nearby active players with the speed fast enough to make them populated.

     

    Are we playing the same game? When players time out other players move in pretty quickly. Alliances resettle their younger players. People create jump rooms to move in. There's no situation where valuable rooms stay vacate for long.

  • Culture

    It will make our world half-empty very soon, since many novice players
    simply stop playing, and their void zones cannot be fulfilled by
    nearby active players with the speed fast enough to make them
    populated

    It won’t! If you adjust the spawn mechanism to make it an “intermediate room” to spawn it it will make clear that it’s dangerous to spawn there, but the rewards can be high.
    If there are lots of zombies nearby they will not be attacked and it’s basically a noobzone. Just make the color orange/yellow instead of walling it off and making it a noobzone. This way established players can still get into the zone, but it’s made clear to new guys that they may be attacked at anytime.

  • Culture

    > Where in the documentation it says something about “5 days” and “noobzone-proof”?

    Seriously, you're going to ignore the documentation we showed you repeatedly, but are going to nitpick over that bit? How about you respond to the fact that your noob zone documentation clearly states that signing should have done something? 

  • Culture

    Also, this insistence that we ignore what you say in the forums is kind of ridiculous. Should we never trust anything you say then?

  • Dev Team

    Seriously, you’re going to ignore the documentation we showed you repeatedly, but are going to nitpick over that bit? How about you respond to the fact that your noob zone documentation clearly states that signing should have done something?

    It does do “something”. We read all sign messages every time we plan new novice areas, and do our best to take them into consideration. But we never officially stated that any “5 days” or “noobzone-proof” rules do exist in the game. The fact that some players like Atavus interpret it in the same way as we do, shows that we weren’t completely unclear on this matter:

    That being said, I feel it was relatively clear from the discussions surrounding room signing that this method was advisory. Simply a way to express the player’s intent to the developers. There was no reasonable way that this would represent a full proof method

  • Culture

    Yeah, but the fact that the majority of players agree with my interpretation shows that you very much were not clear about this. I also don't see the point in signatures at all at this point anymore since they're clearly just ignored by you.


  • Here it is again: http://support.screeps.com/hc/en-us/articles/210342985-Novice-Areas

  • ?

    You can't expect a tiny company to have the manpower to support you on weekends. I also think devs shouldn't give in to this kind of blackmailing, shouting and cursing. This childish tantrum we're seeing is just absurd. Please do not make it seem like one can get what they want if they act like this or there will be no end to these kind of situations.

    I really like the idea of a warning period before novice area is activated.