Planeshift

PlaneShift Game Rules and Policies (specifically [GAME Policy 11] Spoilers and Walkthroughs last edited on June 08, 2008) clearly states that:

Posting walkthroughs and spoilers in password-free sites or forum threads is against the rules. Players should keep in mind that if they wish to share information they have gathered they should do so in-game and only through private channels or password protected sites.

Not following any of these rules is liable to official actions stated in the Game Sanctions.

However, the official PlaneShift website is officially linking to a German PlaneShift community, which contains numerous spoilers on its website and forum, both of which are password-free.

This Tips and Tricks Forum on PSDE.DE is filled with numerous spoilers, many of which are specifically tagged as "[SPOILER]" in the thread title. Such threads usually contain either exact phrases to say to NPCs in order to advance in quests or complete quest solutions. All PSDE.DE administrators and moderators are well aware of it and even encourage it. Many of the participants are regular posters on the official PlaneShift forum.

Some of their screenshots in the Screenshot section contain a "bird's eye view" type of screenshots, which, according to PlaneShift rules and policies, are "spoilers" because they resemble maps, and posting maps is "against the rules".

Here is an example of a Forum Thread from the official PlaneShift forum to illustrate the above:

How to zoom the camera out to see entire map in one screen?

I am looking for a method to zoom the camera out in the game as much as possible, to take a screenshot of entire area (e.g. Hydlaa Plaza) from the top. I tried zooming out with the keyboard but then it stops after a certain distance and I can't see the entire city in one shot. Is this possible? I think it is, because I looked at this picture: (I removed the pic because it may have been considered a spoiler)

These are a couple of replies he received:

You can make your own maps and ask about the technical things required to do so, but please avoid posting them here or any other public site. It's considered a spoiler. Please edit your post to remove that pic. Thanks.

Thanks for removing the map. It was an old one and it sprung a nice walk down memory lane so I guess it wasn't that bad to have it up for a few minutes. We just need to avoid spoilers.

Keep in mind that the PlaneShift staff has been made aware of this problem on their official forum (in case they weren't before) on April 27, 2008 in the thread titled German PlaneShift community and "spoilers", which was eventually locked to prevent people from discussing it and from keeping it in a forum's focus. The thread has been read over 1900 times. However, they continue linking to PSDE.DE to this day and they haven't changed their policies to allow players to discuss spoilers with the "[SPOILER]" tags on the official forum.

While they do state that they are not responsible for and cannot control the content of the unofficial sites, they are, in fact, responsible for what links they officially post on their main website, especially after being made aware of linking to a password-free site that is breaking the rules by posting spoilers. These links have been manually added by the website administrator and PlaneShift project leader Luca "Talad" Pancallo.

This is a screenshot of the linking page just in case:

img299.imageshack.us/img299/71/psdems7.png

Are Luca Pancallo and the rest of the PlaneShift staff "liable to official actions stated in Game Sanctions" for linking to a password-free website and forum containing major "spoilers"? Why haven't they faced any "official actions", as they should have, and why haven't they stopped linking to such a website? They are, in fact, breaking their own rules and policies by knowingly continuing to link to such a website, even after being made well aware of its content, therefore, officially giving it support.

Any subsequent mention of the problem on the official PlaneShift forum is typically censored by the staff, who hope that the issue is going to go away, if people can't discuss it. The threads or posts concerning the problem or containing PSDE.DE URL in them are usually deleted (because it's a "spoiler") and nothing is being done by them to either ask the Germain PlaneShift community to remove the spoilers or to stop linking to them from the official PlaneShift website. The same regular posters, who continue posting spoilers on the German PlaneShift community site, also continue posting on the official PlaneShift forum without facing any "official actions" or even a warning.

PlaneShift staff is well aware that the German PlaneShift community helps increase PlaneShift's popularity and is one of the sources for potential players, not to mention the obvious link and traffic exchange. They also provide one of the mirrors for downloading the game itself. Obviously, they don't want to ruin a relationship with them, so much that they are ready to disregard their own rules and policies, while continuing to censor any "spoilers" from the main forum, warning and threatening anyone who does post them with "official actions", and trying to insult anyone who chooses to post them on independent sites, such as The Linux Game Tome.

I wanted other people to be aware of the obvious dishonesty, lack of integrity, and plain hypocrisy of the PlaneShift development and staff team. Since the PSDE.DE link has not been removed from the official site, then at least many should now be aware of where to find the "spoilers", something that the PlaneShift team is terrified of (unless they think they benefit from traffic exchange). If it is officially linked to from the main website and they are aware of the linked site's contents, it must be ok to post the link anywhere. It's ok to break and disregard PlaneShift's policies, since its staff, including their project leader, break and disregard them too. This is also a thread/post that they are powerless to delete. Even though the site and forum are in German, it is easy enough to find quest solutions you're looking for, since the quest names and exact phrases to say to NPCs are in English, just as the game itself. One can also use automatic translators, such as Google Language Tools on the entire site.

That is if you are still playing this "game" at all. I don't.

I don't think you should stop playing because you disagree with how the devs do business (since it's free). i've made it pretty obvious that I don't like a lot of the crap that happens, but I still play and think it's a fun game.

spoilers are meh.  There have been other websites where this has been an issue and things were changed pretty quickly.  The german community hasn't really done anything wrong and they've done a lot for players, so I'm not complaining if they haven't been punished.

Originally posted by pstruth

I don't think you should stop playing because you disagree with how the devs do business (since it's free). i've made it pretty obvious that I don't like a lot of the crap that happens, but I still play and think it's a fun game.

I don't think I should keep playing it just because the game is free. Even if it's free, it should at least be acceptable. If one offers you free lunch, it must not be rotten. That's common sense.

Unless breaking your own rules and policies became a style of "business", I wouldn't call it a "business" at all. They're breaking their own policies, while trying to enforce those policies on many others and censor/delete any posts that bring up the issue. That's not a "business" but a "business failure". By continuing to play this game, I would be supporting their hypocrisy, dishonesty and lack of integrity, and I refuse to do that.

I've seen you complain about a lot of things in this game. I've also seen you turn around and beg forgiveness. This post isn't about those issues.

Originally posted by pstruth

The german community hasn't really done anything wrong and they've done a lot for players, so I'm not complaining if they haven't been punished.

Does doing "a lot for players" make one exempt from a policy? They may have very well done a lot for some players but that isn't even an issue here.

Just like the German PlaneShift community and "spoilers" thread starter, I think people should be able to discuss spoilers with the "[SPOILER]" tags on the official forum. This isn't about "punishing" German PlaneShift community but about PlaneShift staff following their own policy when they expect others to follow it. I didn't want to be a part of the environment where the main developer and staff team are breaking their own policy, playing favorites and only enforcing their policy on the newcomers, who haven't yet "done a lot for players".

I think you drastically misunderstood what I said.

As for things changing "pretty quickly", the PlaneShift staff have been made well aware of the problem since April 27, 2008, provided that they honestly didn't know about it prior to that. It's June 24, 2008 now.

Originally posted by UtMoon

Wonderful.

Thanks.

I wasn't looking for a response, only for people to read it and since the number of views is increasing, that is all that matters.

I don't play this "game" anymore but that is irrelevant to the fact that PlaneShift developers and staff (some of which doesn't even develop the game) are not following their own policies. Following your own policy would be an "improvement". It also doesn't mean I can't share my experience and observations with others.

Have a nice day too, everyone.

Hey there, Peragro Tempus! How's your competing MMO project going?

EDIT: I just realized he cross-posted this on tLGT as well. Furthermore, his IP address (on tLGT's website) shows that he is posting behind an open proxy.

Taken from the PlaneShift thread:

Peeg-

Disclaimer: Following post contains my personal opinion and nothing else.

I'm part of said community's staff and I'd like to clarify some things.
There are no complete walkthroughs or solutions to any quest on psde (the German community)!
When we designed psde we decided that we won't follow the strict anti-spoiler policy as you all know it from this forum.
There's a simple reason for it: Our goal was (and still is) to help players to enjoy our beloved game as much as possible.  A player who tries to solve a quest  for days and can't finish it because the NPCs won't understand whatever he tries gets frustrated. That's where the enjoyment ends. It's simples as that. Long thing put short: Yes, we allow posters to ask questions about certain quests. Nearly every time a hint into the right direction is enough to make them happy ....

Every entry that could contain the slightest spoiler has to be marked as such. Additionally we provide special tags to hide text-passages that are spoilers. Btw: Yes, we moderate the forums there and we take care that the tags and signs get used when needed.
Spoilers in the Wiki are only available for registered users. We follow the approach that every player should have his own choice when the question arises if he'd like to get some hints. If you don't like it: Fine, don't click where a huge, bold [SPOILER] shows up ...

I like to mention another thing: Every single member of psde's staff has put a huge bunch of work and time into it. I don't know how much time I spent in answering techn. questions, updating the site or translating all kind of official stuff to German. It's been fun and i don't regret a second of it. We build the largest national PS community with about 2800 registered members. If you look at PS' playerbase you'll find a lot Germans ... maybe, just maybe, our concept worked out?

I'm not much of a writer, so i'll close here. If someone feels the urge to discuss this further: I can be found on IRC.

Have a nice day

Alfonso Knaf-

I am too a member of the staff of psde.de as well as founder of the site.
It's true we have spoilers publically available and the reason is exactly like peeg phrased it.
We provide help (you can call it spoilers) for the same reason the official boards provide the tutorial walkthrough, to avoid frustration.

Anyhow "heavy" spoilers are only available after registration and therefore not visible when searching for "planeshift deutsch hilfe" (planeshift german help) via google.
I would be really disappointed when the link to psde.de in the other languages section would be removed.
We provide much more than just spoilers we provide a community base and help in general. Besides we are a few months away from providing the first working translation since MB as well as a platform for translation open for every language. We wouldn't have found helfull (and nice) community members which dedicate their time to this if it weren't for our site.
We encourage roleplaying whenever possible, in fact our staff values rp in PS over most other aspects and that's what we try to get across to our community.
I would really like to discuss all this further with the PS team, maybe we find a solution...

*heavy sarcasm in a deadpan voice* Yes, terrible things are going on here. I think I will go on a crusade to ban the entire German community. Thank you for pointing out these grievous crimes. The lack of integrity is nearly blinding. The dishonesty sickens my to my stomach. The hypocrisy is astounding. Keep up the good work and be sure to kick the cane out from under any J-walking grannies you see.

This topic, like many others is being blown out of proportion. It is tiring to be held to some subjective definition of "integrity" by folks who clearly have some anger toward the project.

There is little merit in the arguments of Kordo, this if furthered by his or her overt attempts at anonymity both on this forum and originally on our forum.

Anyone can be a troll via a proxy and say whatever they want.

What I would like people to be able to see is that developers of PlaneShift must work against complaints of this nature and it takes time away from building the game.

We don't have budget or sufficient volunteers for an extensive PR department, so when someone slams the game or the integrity of the people who give countless hours of their free time to the game that seems to be the only impression that is left in places like mmorpg.com or tlgt.

One may think they are crusaders for truth and in some cases be well intentioned but the net result is a smear that ps can hardly afford the time to defend itself against.

Happy gaming.

There's a bit of wisdom, "treat others as you wish to be treated".  The PS devs are judged more by their own behavior than by the random posts of trolls.

UtMoon could have posted something like this:

"I'm very sorry that you feel we've been unfair.  We've been aware of the spoilers for a while now and we're actually working behind the scenes to fix the problem.  Thank you for your concern."

Nothing else would need to be said.

Smile.  Say thank you.  Practice a little humility.  Be nice.  It will pay off for you in the long run, even though you won't have the satisfaction of flaming people who you feel are trolling you.  Not only would UtMoon haved saved much of his precious time, but he would have made himself look better.

And yes, I'm telling you to lie.  I'm telling you to pretend to care and act as if you aren't upset and offended.  It works.