I was pinged, and given I'm one of the folks with a high number of
legal alts, and thus am the most likely to be affected by this rule, I figured I'd chime in here. I am putting below my suggestions on how best to improve or overhaul the alt-padding rule. I will address CS_Birb's points in a separate post.
I want to start off by saying I am
not opposed to there being a rule against significant alt-padding. I do, however, strongly urge Game Staff to clearly and concisely define
exactly what constitutes "excessive alt padding."
Right now, this is essentially left to staff discretion. Staff discretion is confusing for players and makes the rules harder to enforce, as it will inevitably lead to a devolution of he-said vs she-said between different game staff - I've seen this happen myself, and many many people have talked about this happening, both pre-and-post Game Staff Sledgehammer, regarding basically any type of rule that has been left to "staff discretion." (e.g. acro grinders, redstone clocks, behavior in chat, etc...) Clearly defined, black and white rules preclude claims of poor staff communication and potential staff abuse. They also should make enforcement of rules easier - qgmk said it himself that basically the rules in their current state are extremely hard to enforce, and as a result of this lack of enforcement, the community at large really has no idea what is and is not okay. To make matters worse, the massivecraft.com rules and the MassiveWiki rules aren't exactly the same, and then there's more information posted in a rules update thread I will link below.
Below is my proposal for how to overhaul the rule:
-Define a Limit for Active Factions: Define a clear cut limit on the maximum number of alts you are allowed to use in a non-alt faction, defined as a percentage of non-alt players.
This rules update thread is the only place that has something like this: It states that you can
have up to 3 alts per non-alt player. I think this is fair - It's very lenient for smaller factions, and for larger factions you hit a point where reaching that limit becomes absurd. If larger facs using this is a concern, set a maximum limit (e.g. 15-20, which is often the most you see used anyways).
-Create a Simple Classification System for Alt Factions: I think it's time for us face the fact that not every alt-faction is created equal. So far as I've seen, there are three different kinds of alt factions:
-Facilities & Storage: These are facilities such as darkrooms, farms, grinders, and storage/vaults. These are the traditional alt faction and are commonly used in support of a faction.
-Land Holding and Previously Active Factions: These are either factions created specifically to hold land (e.g. my alt faction Abriter, MagCo) or are either a renamed active faction or a faction that has claimed the land of a previous active faction (e.g. TON618, KaiserreichAF, EnigmaAF, and SteadfastAlt before it was turned into Vanguard). Also could be the original faction itself, owned by another person (e.g. Volarys, Enigma, Brightshore) Other holding factions could be people having side projects they're working on (e.g. GreenwoodAF, Travelers).
-Claiming Factions and Others: These are factions purpose built for looting and are used to claim over factions as they disband or possibly after the fact. (e.g BelloqInc, Sunsera before it disbanded, and Regalia, the faction not the RP world) This category could also absorb any alt facs that don't clearly fit within the other categories.
-Define Limits on Alt Factions Based on Classification System: Now we have a classification system on what type of a faction an AF is, we set the following limits;
-
Facilities & Storage: Mostly Facilities and Storages are very small by nature - usually less than 200 chunks. These should be fairly leniently managed, and usually won't contribute to any meaningful "alt-padding" issues.
-Recommended Limit: 3 to 1 Alts per Non-Alt Player in Parent Faction (see Active Factions section above). For special circumstances, can apply for staff approval to use more.
-
Land Holding and Previously Active Factions: These will be the hardest to enforce due to the possibly arbitrary nature of how they are claimed. They could be previously active factions that did not use alts to claim land at all. They could still belong to the original owner, who has moved their faction to a new world perhaps. As new worlds release, this is an especially likely scenario.
-For factions that are just shuffling around land they previously owned: Allow factions sufficient alts to move previously owned chunks between the original faction and an alt faction. They are NOT allowed to claim more chunks than the original faction had.
-For factions that that were previously active factions my recommendation is: Treat as a normal non-alt faction.
-For factions that are building projects or other holdings, I recommend a limit of: 10 alts, with the ability to request staff approval to claim more.
-Claiming Factions and Others: Looting factions are by far the most frivolous alt factions. Staff has on numerous occasions in the past approved the use of specially designed alt factions for claiming disbanded factions.
-Recommended Limit: 5 Alts. Other factions can can request staff approval to claim more.
As mentioned, alt-padding rules have always been very vague and a source of confusion. As such it is fair that the punishment for violations be initially lenient - the "damage" can easily be undone by either staff or the player, after all.
-"Grandfather In" Previously Claimed Violating Factions: As mentioned previously, pretty much no one knew what was good or not and asking staff didn't really help. Besides, we all saw Sir_Daragon lending out alts, among other things that just made it seem like using alts was okay. As such, if these rules were implemented or something like this, then it's only fair for pre-existing facs that used alts to claim be "grandfathered in" as they didn't know better.
-Be Lenient on Punishment: The rules on massivecraft.com state that a player could be outright banned for this - that's exceedingly harsh for something that is very easy to remedy. It's not my place to tell staff how exactly to dole out punishments, but I feel that banning someone for "alt padding" is a bit much (unless it's extremely egregious and done knowingly).
-Alt Generators: The rules suggested above obviously apply
only to legal alts. Use of Alt Generators should be a bannable offense, as it is a Minecraft EULA violation.
If the rules are changed, I do request that the rules are put on both the Wiki and on the Site in an identical state - More often than not those two pages conflict eachother and it has only contributed to the confusion pertaining to this.
