Topic

Unfix the Bug [Edit: Actually, just give people a warning message]

Everyone I knew in the game thought that the bug that others couldn't interact with your gardens in your street was a feature, not a bug.  People didn't worry about having things taken and many people used it to plant decorative gardens.

It is already extremely clear that street gardens are going to be the new community gardens / tree wars with multiple forum threads of hundreds of posts of people being angry at one another.  It is not a hypothetical problem, people are already running around streets looking for stuff to grab.  The bug fix has already caused strife in the community, and there are going to be calls for all kinds of fixes from not allowing non-friends on your streets to getting logs of who took them so you can ban them, etc.  Then others will yell at those who suggest this and tell them not to put garden in their streets if they don't like the way it works - of course I won't have gardens in my street, nor will anyone else who understands how the game works, but new players and people who don't imagine that people will be trauling streets for stuff will, so they will be the ones victimized.  Perhaps it would be better to shortcut all of this and just put it back to how it was.

Posted 8 months ago by Humbabella Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • I think it helps to remember that these kinds of controversies are part of the mmorpg experience. 

    Controversy is good for Glitch as a business because controversy leads to increased forum activity and intense customer engagement. When people post about these issues, they feel more emotionally invested in the game. They keep coming back to the forums to keep up with the dialogue. All of this translates to pageviews which is one of the benchmarks used to determine the monetary value of a website.

    We get so caught up in the game that it is easy to forget that Glitch is a business.

    To us, Glitch looks like this: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7050/6880620111_76615c1359_z.jpg

    But to Tiny Speck, Glitch looks a lot like this: http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?&w=400&h=220&o=f&c=1&y=p&b=ffffff&n=666666&r=2y&u=glitch.com&

    To us, the controversies feel like "strife in the community" but it is just part of the Glitch business model. Read more about this business model and user generated content here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User-generated_content#New_business_models

    When we post here in the forums it is tempting to think that we are outside of Glitch, looking at it and discussing it, but that is not the case at all. These forums are just as much a part of the Glitch experience and the Glitch business as "the world" is.
    Posted 8 months ago by Miss Bobbit Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It would be even better if you couldn't put resources on "your" street AT ALL.  Keep your stuff in your backyard, and if you need other resources, go out into UR where the resources are meant to be.   Using "your street" as some sort of ersatz community space is a bad thing, imo. 
    Posted 8 months ago by WalruZ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I do not want to play in the game that you describe, WalruZ, I so strongly disagree with your opinion on this.  I joined Glitch specifically on the promise that I'd someday be able to create a public space that other players could use, that would be an expression of my own creativity.

    And on those grounds, I cannot agree with the original poster of this thread, either.
    Posted 8 months ago by Carl Projectorinski Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 for everything Miss Bobbit said ;)

    I would add: I think we get so caught up in the game that it is easy to forget Glitch is a *game*.

    At times I find the "strife in the community" very upsetting.  Then I try to remind myself, this is simply part of the experience of interacting with others.  Learning to deal with it is part of the game.  For some people, that will mean not putting any resources in their front yards, and I see nothing wrong with this.
    Posted 8 months ago by Miss Portinari Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't mind arguing, and I definitely respect WalruZ quite a bit.  But, I do want my two cents known.  The reason I am playing this game is for the promise of user crafted streets.  And, there isn't much point to user crafted streets, in my opinion, if other users can't use them.

    Even though Tiny Speck looks to be moving in this direction anyway, I will repeat this, too.  Think of it as a non-monetary contribution to their business model!  ;)
    Posted 8 months ago by Carl Projectorinski Subscriber! | Permalink
  • User crafted streets seem completely appropriate, but when it comes to gardens they are going to be the same situation as the community gardens were.

    New and Occasional Players
    Before saying that the forums are part of the game, I think it would be worthwhile to examine how many people who play the game use the forums in any way.  Obviously I don't have these statistics for glitch, but where they have been published for others games, the answer is usually less than 2%.  Like I said, the people who are going to be victimized in this are people who are just playing casually.

    My concern is for those people.  Like I said, this is not a hypothetical problem, people are already going from street to street looking for things to take.  I came home to find someone had taken four plots worth of spinach from my yard.  Now for me this is nothing, I was only planting the spinach to break the garden to see the project anyway.  But at the same time I think about the fact that someone was willing to do something that they would know might upset or offend someone for four plots worth of spinach and it makes me frustrated.  It concerns me that this might be the first point of interaction that people have with the community.  Imagine that instead of a half stack of spinach being taken from a millionaire it was the results of the first herb seed a new player ever found.  How would that make them feel about the game?  How would they feel when they asked others for help and were told "Why did you put a garden on your street if you didn't want people to take stuff?"

    Decorative Gardens
    People were using the no-access gardens to plant decorative gardens in front of their houses with no intention of picking them.  That is actually much more user-generated content than the ability to decide which resources to put on our streets.

    User Generated Content
    I am looking forward to being able to built streets, but I am looking forward to really being able to built them.  I want to put platforms, quoins and spawning items in.  Doors with locks and keys.  Place decorative objects in the background.  I hope the game gets there one day.  Creating your own community garden is great if that's what you want to do.  Surprising people with the fact that they've created their own community garden is not.

    Business Model
    Page views are not a business model, subscriptions are.  While you can argue that pages views correlate to subscriptions (I'm sure they do).  I can't see a reason to think that page views that go towards a bunch of people insulting at each other, ignoring each other's arguments and putting each other on blocked lists will lead to increased subscriptions.
    Posted 8 months ago by Humbabella Subscriber! | Permalink
  • You have some good points, but this morning I found a very good use for open gardens.

    I loaded the game and entered my street to find my herb garden full of purple.  Purple that I didn't put there.

    Here is what I think will mitigate the community garden issue:  volume.  With open front street gardens, there can be a LOT of them.  More than there are griefers.  For most players, most of the time, gardens will be left alone.  There is also less motivation to raid gardens, as you can put your own on your street.

    By having an open garden on my street, I invite people to leave another kind of gift.  As I already have a great deal of stuff and do not actively seek more, this is a doubly pleasant surprise for me, as I can harvest it, shuck half and plant some more knowing that the next person to come along may find a resource for their own use!

    If a griefer or a sweeper or a poor lower level glitch comes along and takes everything, that is fine.  It just gives me work to do that will earn me more experience or imagination.
    Posted 8 months ago by Carl Projectorinski Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Having read some other threads on this, someone else suggested a much better solution to the biggest problem I have with these gardens: simply give people warning when they make a street garden that it will be public and that anyone can harvest things they plant in it.

    As such, I retract my original gloomy suggestion in favour of this one that will allow people to continue to have public gardens intentionally but that will prevent much hurt and upset.  I'd still like to see purely ornamental options added for the front yard, a role that non-accessible gardens were filling briefly (though I assume that ornamentation for our streets is something TS intends to add).
    Posted 8 months ago by Humbabella Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm aching for some window boxes for herbs. 
    Posted 8 months ago by Aleph Zero Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I do not understand where this expectation of enforced ownership come from.

    If people do not read the forums (and I am sure the majority of players do not) why would they think stuff "on the street" is in any way protected.  IRL, I can leave anything I want out in the yard.  Chances are that if it has any value, someone will come along and pick it up, not even leaving me a flaming Humbaba.  My yard IRL is private property, but accessible to all.

    If I want something safe, I will put it in the house or in my secured back yard.  If I left my toys, food or beverages in the front yard and someone took it, I do not think I would get much sympathy from either the police or my insurance company.  Maybe strong advice to be more careful, or even rolled eyes at how naive I am. but not much sympathy.  

    Meanwhile - can I find someone who enforces my private ownership as those damn deer eat my sprouting hostas, tulips and  daylillies down to a nub?  Now THAT is unfair and I can not even "block" Bambi.
    Posted 8 months ago by Kookaburra Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Not that our real life homes are specific examples of how Glitch housing should work, but:

    Maybe that depends on where you live, Kookaburra? The places I've lived, I've left lots of stuff in the yard that I expected would stay there and did.
    Posted 8 months ago by diaveborn ♥ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • And yet, Kookaburra, we do have examples of people's expectations every day.  Some people need to have their hands held, which is why a disclaimer may not be such a bad idea.
    Posted 8 months ago by Carl Projectorinski Subscriber! | Permalink
  • In real life if leave something at the end of my yard near the road I would reasonably expect someone might take it.  However, I would not expect someone to pick vegetables from my front-yard garden, nor would I expect them to take a barbeque off of my porch.  In fact, if the latter happened I would likely call the police to report a theft.  I would also likely be told that the odds of recovering my property were slim, but that is an unfortunate fact of reality, not a statement of what is legal or what is right.  In a game world where staff have access to full logs of all actions, there is no issue of catching the perpetrator, so the fact that in reality the police wouldn't be much help is irrelevant.

    Making analogies to real life is difficult because there are a lot of cultural norms built up in real life.  Saying that everyone should rightly expect that a garden in their front yard is public property seems presumptuous to me.

    Also in real life if people do things to harm you there is a system for punishing them.  Glitch is already programmed to prevent us from doing harm to one another (or not programmed to allow us to do harm to one another, whichever way you want to look at it) so there are no systems for punishment (in fact any attempt at community punishment of an offender violates the ToS).

    Cases where we can see that some people will be aggrieved by the actions of others have to be considered carefully as there are no clear cut rules for what is harmful behaviour and the community has no ability to deal with willfully harmful behaviour (I know you can report to staff if someone is harassing you, but a person who is taking stuff from your garden is not doing anything wrong so unless they decide to make fun of you as well you have a big potential for willfully griefing behaviour without any possible reaction.  Similarly, you can hardly report that you came home and found that your garden had been picked clean when it is within the rights of others to do so).

    Edit Also, if deer came along and ate my garden sometimes I would not be concerned about that at all.  That would be another thing to factor into my cost-benefit calculation.  Other people are not deer or weather.
    Posted 8 months ago by Humbabella Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What about giving users the option to choose whether their front yard resources are public or private? 
    Posted 8 months ago by Cadmium Blue Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Countess.  Unfortunately, that idea has been turned down time and again by the Devs as "too hard to program."
    Posted 8 months ago by Carl Projectorinski Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ah, I see.  Bummer.
    Posted 8 months ago by Cadmium Blue Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Also, that makes the front yard the same as the back, so no real point that I can see to it.

    Front is accessible to everyone you haven't blocked, while back is accessible to those you give keys or let in manually.  I don't see why people who clearly understand the mechanic and have heard it said repeatedly that things are WAI still think there's a bug.

    How about instead asking for more (inoperative) decorations that look like gardens? That would add more appearance options for those why just want those things in the front for decoration.
    Posted 8 months ago by Janitch Subscriber! | Permalink
  • A good example of this would be things like logs, or the mushrooms and flowers in Groddle Forest!  I understand some things like this are actually in the plans.
    Posted 8 months ago by Carl Projectorinski Subscriber! | Permalink
  • You know when you hear the crazy details of some belief system with tenets that are just so wildly implausible and it makes you think: huh … people really believe that? That how it feels to me reading about his issue.

    I'm not trying to be dismissive or disrespectful … I just honestly can't get my head inside that thinking or see things from the perspective of someone who would be upset that others used their public garden.

    The good news is that I think there are many millions of people out there who would enjoy Glitch precisely because of the possibilities it affords for acts of generosity, sharing and co-operation. I think that spirit will triumph.
    Posted 8 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Stoot: I hear you when you say you can't understand people who get upset that someone else used their public garden, but I think it's important not to put those people in one bucket.  A selfish narcissist who doesn't want to share at all is as rare as a person who wants to share and has no boundaries about what they think is fair and kind behaviour.  Everyone's boundaries are in different places.  Some of the people who were most upset about "thieves" in the public herb garden are also among the most gregarious and helpful people playing the game.  I was firmly of the belief that community gardens are 100% public and that no one could "steal" anything from there, but I still had sympathy for the people who felt that others had taken things they worked to produce without a "may I," a "thank you" or an "I'm sorry."

    Here's a story: A new person decides to try Glitch, they find out they can make their own house and decide to put an herb garden and a crop garden in their front yard.  They can easily get crop seeds, and they are not sure where to get herb seeds.  After playing for a while they decide to go to Global Chat and ask where herb seeds come from.  Three people say "AH" which, of course, they don't understand at all.  Someone says you can get them from the ancestral lands.  They ask where the ancestral lands are.

    They walk halfway across the world, explore the ancestral lands and are lucky enough to get an herb seed from one of the traps.  They excitedly go to their home and plant it.

    Two days later they come back to play Glitch again.  Instead of herbs they find a weedy patch.  Again, they go to Global Chat and ask what happened, thinking perhaps that gardens spoil if you don't harvest them - they are unhappy about this situation.  The answer: Someone else took the herb.  They get upset because they never even realized other people could do that.  The response from Global Chat: "Then why did you put it on your street?"

    They had a great time playing, they had a great time walking halfway across the world and seeing all the things on the way, they were excited to get that seed and to plant it and to see what an herb looked like or did.  For most people, the negative experience at the end (being denied a reward that you think you've earned is a negative experience) will cast the positive experiences along the way in a negative light.  As I mentioned, in real life people would not pick vegetables or flowers from your front yard garden (at least they would be expected not to by ordinary community standards).  It is not unreasonable for a person to think that similar standards would apply and that their front yard garden belonged to them.

    Does this story sound implausible?  Remember the community acrimony over tree wars and community gardens?  People expressed no sympathy for the position of someone who felt upset that something happened but rather they angrily asserted their own position.  There was no consideration given to where that person might be coming from or what their experiences with the game up to that point might have been.  I even saw cases where people who tried to post positive or mediating messages were then attacked for their "righteous" attitudes.  These arguments actively sapped good will and cooperative spirit from the community by their extremely negative tone.

    I made my original suggestion partly out of my sensitivity to these arguments that have happened in the past.  If my first experience in Glitch had been walking into Wickdoon Mood during the tree war there I may have stopped playing and never come back.  I agree after reading some discussion that it was overly pessimistic, but I do think that a warning could help reduce some potential negativity.

    I think that giving a simple message to people the first time they put any resource on their street reminding them that their street is public and that anyone can harvest from or otherwise use the resources on their street is a very non-intrusive solution that encourages rather than discourages a spirit of sharing.  It actively reminds you that sharing is a thing that people do, and that every time you go to another street and see other people who put resources out, they did so consciously intending to share.  That new player may decide to plant their first herb in their backyard because they want it for themselves does not go against the idea of sharing.  They may decide to plant potatoes in their front yard to share, or to plant a tree or make a rock - whatever they feel they can afford at the time they create it.  But even if they never engage in a single generous act in the game, perhaps we could be generous to them by giving them the space to play the game in their own way.

    An equally plausible end to the story I told is that someone in Global says, "Oh, gardens on your street are public so anyone can harvest them, what kind of herb was it?" and then sends the new Glitch a whole stack of herbs of that type so they don't lose out on account of their lack of knowledge.  I can think of lots of Glitchen who would do that, we aren't going to scare those people away by reminding them that they are being generous by putting a garden on their street.  If anything, we will improve their experience.

    Edit: Also the suggestion came from my own position that a decorative garden was actually a better addition to the game than a useful garden, but that is the perspective of a level 60 millionaire and not really a valid point - this is just to say that I'm really looking forward to having purely decorative elements for streets the way we do for houses.
    Posted 8 months ago by Humbabella Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Humbabella, that is a long post, but every word of it worth reading.
    Posted 8 months ago by Carl Projectorinski Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Well expressed post Humbabella. My issue remains, though, that if we make front gardens behave like back gardens we've lost functionality and no one can have their own public gardens.

    I still think the fundamental problem is labeling home streets as "yours".  People's only reference for "their" area is the current (old) homes which are private.  Maybe it would be better to have the street be named after you, but in a less ownership way.  For example, "Janitch lane" instead of "Janitch's Home Street".

    If people think of the home streets in the same way as the streets in the old housing quarters, problem solved.
    Posted 8 months ago by Janitch Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I totally agree, Janitch, that public gardens in streets are a good thing.  People have made a very good case for that, and my initial reaction to this issue was kind of overblown.  At this point I'm advocating a warning message to remind people that their street is a public place when they go to place something for the first time.

    I like the idea of having your street named after you.  Then we could even rename be given the option of renaming it (even if it was just a choice between street, lane, road, avenue, etc.) or the name could be based on the background we choose (Humbabella Grotto, Humbabella Woods, etc.)
    Posted 8 months ago by Humbabella Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I've been playing Glitch for six months and this has been true the entire time: Humbabella always says things worth listening to. +verylargenumber to Humbabella.

    Your description of the dynamic of the tree/community garden wars was perfect; thank you so much for that.
    Posted 8 months ago by Flowerry Pott Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Humbabella — I totally get your story and understand why that'd be a bad thing. I don't think we'll need a warning though: the entire first part of the game is being redesigned and reworked from the bottom up. By the time someone is able to place a herb garden they will understand the difference between home streets and yards.

    ETA: Also, for decorative items, we can do much better than a busted version of the current gardens :)
    Posted 8 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Nice.
    Posted 8 months ago by Carl Projectorinski Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Well, I expected street ornamentation would be in development.  A totally redesigned new player experience will probably accomplish all I'd like and more.  I look forward to giving such things a whirl in the future.  Thanks for your consideration of community issues.
    Posted 8 months ago by Humbabella Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "The entire first part of the game is being redesigned and reworked from the bottom up."

    Gah! I'll have to get an alt :0)
    Posted 8 months ago by geekybird Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm so happy to see such a thoughtful post combined with equally thoughtful responses on the matter. I'm not sure I have much to contribute to this, so much has been said already, but I will say this; Stoot once said that he hoped to create a game whose players created their own culture, and there he has succeeded. However while it is true that Glitch has culture I think it would be more accurate to say that Glitch has /cultures/.

    Player controlled public spaces should include the flexibility needed to facilitate the many types of culture that fall and rise in this whimsical game.
    Posted 8 months ago by La Mariposa Subscriber! | Permalink
  • So nothing will be done about the streets, then.  I agree with Humbabella on this issue, and wish there was a way to allow the open streets, but limit who can just help themselves.  Leaving trees, barnacles, fireflies, and the like open to all is fine since it regenerates quickly enough and is easy to replace... but crops are another story.  Those take cost, time, and energy to maintain, replace, and inventory.  

    I am in the category of a very moderately well-to-do Glitch who will give anybody whatever they need just because they ask or express a need.  I realize that most things in the game cost me very little, and if someone is in need I am more than happy to give it all away.

    The difference is with thieves (yeah, I'm calling them that) who come and take things that do not regenerate or grow on their own, and leave nothing in return.  This is not a person taking things out of a need or because they asked.  This is laziness, greed, and selfishness.  

    I've had my street absolutely pillaged, and I don't even have that many friends.  Why did I leave all those herbs and animals out on the street?  Because I had the ability to get more done with the extra capacity of a yard!  Why wouldn't I use those options for crops?  But what good do they do me if anyone can wander in a take it?  It's not a matter of public space and sharing, it's a matter of enabling people to be lazy thieves and get something for nothing that they put no effort into.

    It leaves me feeling taken advantage of and disrespected... the exact opposite as all my previous feelings about this game.  I just subscribed because I want to support the hard work of TS, but this is disheartening to see this kind of effect taking place and the strong feelings this causes being tossed aside and shrugged at.

    In protest and frustration, I've turned my front yard into a dark wasteland filled with angry gnomes and harsh notes.  It only caused frustration and anger before, and now it just makes me sad.  I sincerely hope something can be done.
    Posted 7 months ago by da Zappa Subscriber! | Permalink
  • When the housing change happens, it sounds like you folks could simply not spend imagination for public areas, and concentrate your efforts in your back yard, where you can control access (via keys, or letting people visit while you are there)
    Posted 7 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink