We ban evil on sight and it’s fine like this

Right from the start it was clear, I wanted Golemizer to be a family friendly game.

No swearing, no racism, no sexual innuendo, no religion, no politic, … Anything that can sparks trouble. Of course eliminating the previous list doesn’t mean there won’t be any trouble but it’s a good start and it’s easy to comply to these rules. You really don’t have to try hard to follow those rules so they can’t be argued.

That’s nothing new really as you’ll find similar rules in most if not all MMOs. Other MMOs might be a bit too big though to allow strict regulation so there’s always someone getting away with it.

There’s nothing more fulfilling than having a nice chat with a player that tells you how much they like what you created and rules are there as a proof of respect to these players that are just there to have simple clean fun. When you take care of a troublemaker they are very thankful for it and they always make sure that I know about it.

So no we are not afraid to use the ban hammer in Golemizer when it’s required. Of course there are consequences …

That’s a typical case of an inappropriate name. When a new player creates an account everyone is warned about it through global chat so it makes it easy for me and GMs (or even players by using the /report command) to take care of the problem.

If the ratings are not linked to IP address it can make it difficult to get a good rating. Those people are usually able to dedicate a lot of energy just to vent their frustration. I don’t care about their frustration but I just hope that it’s taken into account on Kongregate. You don’t need to moderate a typical Flash game so of course you’re facing a lot less fire. The game is currently at 3.5 so there’s still hope for more than welcome exposure. Time will tell.

It crossed my mind that maybe we could just change the name of the character but that’s just not worth it. Someone coming in with such name is obviously not interested to collaborate to a friendly and nice game experience. Changing their name would only push by a few minutes the ban.

There’s also the mute command but it’s currently not linked to the IP. It’s used as a friendly reminder to people that might say a bit too much from time to time. Of course there’s always the possibility to create another account and keep spamming chat with stuff going against the rules but then it’s just asking for an IP ban.

I found that GMs usually have more patience than me when it comes to mute and bans length. It’s probably because the moment it gets to me it’s because it had to be bad enough and I honestly don’t have enough time to think twice about it.

So far the way the consequences have been applied to people breaking rules have paid off as you’ll find in Golemizer a friendly and helpful community. Sure it’s not perfect like anywhere else but to all people interested to check Golemizer just know that we (me and the GMs) do care a lot about the health of the community and I keep receiving good feedback about the way we handle things.

There’s always room for improvement but so far I’m quite proud of what have been achieved on that level.