Griefing and social engineering policies

[LauriFB]

UPDATE AUGUST 2021: Please note that some of these rules will be revised for Early Access. Final rules will be posted to Wiki. In the meantime, this post should be viewed as informative post about about what we see as griefing and other topics mentioned here.

With Starbase we are going to take a much more strict stance with griefing and social engineering than many other games do. We don't believe griefing and such actions add any value to any game, and thus we don't want Starbase to be populated with griefers. Some examples:

Griefing

All hostile or purposefully annoying actions inside permanent safe zones are considered griefing. So there won't be any exploit use or harassment inside permanent safe zones which we wouldn't consider griefing. For example any attempts to nudge or lure someone out of the safe zone or any actions preventing anyone playing the game inside safe zones are considered griefing.


Safe zone goals and sizes

While permanent safe zones will cover a lot of space and everyone is able to build one station and one moon structure inside permanent safe zones, a big part of the overall universe is not inside permanent safe zones. The core idea is to offer everyone fully protected base wealth that cannot be taken away, so they are able to risk small parts of their wealth (one ship at a time usually) when venturing out to PvP zones.


Social Engineering used to steal property and/or used to grief people

Social engineering used to grief others is forbidden. Starbase offers a ton of fun ways to compete with others and win, and those are the preferred methods.

Especially forbidden, if there even is such a thing, is social engineered stealing inside permanent safe zones or stealing from single players, small groups or any friendly groups (such as pretending to be friends for a while and then stabbing them in the back just to cause grief to the others).

There could be some legitimate organization split-ups where the division of property needs to be sorted out. We will look into these case by case. Furthermore, there could be situations where two large factions are at war and someone infiltrates the other and maybe even steals a fighter or two. While we can't draw exact lines for every situation, we will be offering as many examples as possible to draw a clear line. Players are also free to suggest/ask for examples.


Property loss due to bugs, exploits, griefing or social engineering

We will refund any losses caused by actions not intended to happen. Furthermore, there will be certain situations where property loss is next to impossible (like permanent safe zones), so if property loss happens due to external reasons in a situation where it should not be happening we will refund property without much hesitation. The main idea is that people who seek property security are able to identify situations where they are fully safe. Exploiting our property refund policy is a bannable offense.


PvP areas, exploration

All PvP areas are free for all, and there are no rules in PvP areas. Everyone is offered a fair chance to play fully or partially safe, and opting to go to fully dangerous areas comes with the risk of losing everything you are flying into the dangerous areas.

There will be both dynamic safe zones and other dynamic safety options to allow exploration of the vast space without risking everything. Players are encouraged to take risks by offering faster wealth gain outside of safe areas, as well as with the above described base wealth protection. Even players seeking full safety are able to enjoy most of the game's content, but fastest progression is always made by those who take at least some risks.


Stream sniping

Stream sniping is allowed. Trying to control stream sniping would be impossible and would in itself create a huge exploit: claiming to be a streamer would give some sort of immunity, which is an impossible situation for us and the players. Streamers enjoy the same safe zone protections as everybody else, but in PvP zones they must be aware of people watching their streams and prepared to risk their ship etc. We will focus our efforts to weed out griefers and cheaters.

 

[[QS] Combustible]

It may help to define what exactly you believe is social engineering, so everyone has the same understanding. Do the social engineering rules only apply to safezones as well?

 

[JoelFB]

Here's a couple of topics from Discord that came up. Please note that these are not yet official rules (Code of Conduct), we will post them separately at a later time around Early Access launch.

Key takeaways

The most important things to us:

1) Allow players to play the game safely if they wish (no part in PvP, very small risk of losing property)
2) Prevent harassing/griefing of new players

We'll achieve the above by using safezones and protecting them in many technical ways, and should those technical ways fail, having a strict ruleset that does not allow anything negative by other players within the safezones.

Outside of the safezones we'll still uphold all of the rules, but it becomes much more case-by-case and is not as automatic as it is within safezones.

Essentially we are drawing a hard line and that line is the safezone border. Any kind of griefing, exploits, or other negative action will not be tolerated in the slightest within the safezones.


Safezones

Safezones are around the beginning stations (Origin) and around parts of the closest moon (not all of the moon), and possible along the route from the station to the moon.

There will also be dynamic safezones that make it a bit easier to live in space even further outside the static safezones (starting stations). Dynamic safezones will also fall under the same strict rules (however if that safezone is lifted, then it's not a safezone anymore - dynamic safezones mean that it can be on/off/expand/shrink).

In the end 99,9999% of the universe is not inside a safezone.

Other moons and new planets (when introduced) will mostly be PvP areas and not have static safezones. Thus exploring them is a risky business, quite literally as mining ores might be more lucrative in new areas.

Generally, if people willingly and on their own travel outside the safezone, anything is fair game.


This is difficult to uphold

Yes, it is difficult to uphold. We'll revise as we go along according to what we can do. The key takeaway here is that we will not allow griefing. How we achieve that is secondary to the intent of not allowing it.


What about toxicity?

We will have a similar stance against toxicity, and again, it will be very hard to uphold but we'll do our best. We will combine automatic measures along with relying on user reports with screenshots/timestamps that we verify from the server side.


How can you uphold such a strict policy in a game with thousands of players?

We will have automatic measures and our own CM/support team, however we will also have player moderators with limited rights inside the game. We are working on this system and will create the rules/processes according to our development progress. It is likely that in the beginning of Early Access a lot of this is still work in progress.


Griefing - infiltration, factions, war

Our policy is to protect the unprotected - meaning new players, or players who prefer to play alone or in close groups, or are simply only interested in building and creating. While Starbase supports and to a degree even encourages PvP, if a player is not interested in those mechanics, we want them to be able to opt out and remain completely safe. This is the crux of our griefing policy.

In other words, a war between two factions will have a much higher threshold for any punitive action. We may look into ways for factions to opt out of griefing rules and such (i.e. such faction would never claim any benefits from developers even if we'd deem them possible). We haven't yet decided or designed if this is will be a "Hardcore mode" or just a written statement on their Faction biography or a ticked checkbox, but the overall sentiment is that larger factions are "out on their own", especially if no safezones are involved.

Related to the above, infiltrating an opposing faction in a war to steal ship blueprints, or taking part in espionage and social engineering that is not allowed against the general endokind, would not be considered griefing.


General sabotage and "trickery"

Sabotage is fine outside of safezones.


Punishment options and reimbursing victims

Punishment for griefing and other actions will vary based on the severity of the action. We would prefer to use ingame mechanics, such as Saltberia (the Starbase prison) as much as possible. As of right now we do not know if Saltberia will make Early Access launch, so we may have to resort to typical warnings or day, weekly, monthly bans.

When we look at cases, we will first look at the victim, and reimburse e.g. ship cost if a ship was lost as a result of griefing or other not-supposed-to-happen reason. Next we will look at the other side, and see if the act was intentional (griefing), a mishap, or undetermined/not enough evidence.

We will most likely begin with softer reprimands. If someone is constantly involved in violations or is "on the fence" in a lot of cases, we can count 1+1 together. See below for penalty examples.


Edge of safezone

The edges of safezones are going to be a "hot hub" for activity and disagreements. We will have ingame mechanics that make it clear to new players that venturing outside of the safezone is dangerous. We'll be keeping an eye out for the edges of safezones and implementing new mechanics or rules as needed.

As an example, nudging someone out of safezone is most likely just a warning the first time, but of course repeat offenders will find time to map Saltberia.


Specific case examples

User question: "So you can lie about wanting to mine with another person (and then backstab them) as long as it's outside of the safe zone?"
No, this is still griefing because it includes social engineering, especially if soliciting happened in a safezone station.

User question: "What about hiring pirates to attack a small mining group?"
User question: "What about hiring pirates to attack a small mining group in order to try to scam developers for reimbursement?"
Attacking miners outside the safezone is generally fair play, unless it includes a social engineering component or other scamming.

Intent is the key in these kind of cases. Drawing the line is going to be difficult and without bulletproof evidence we may simply reimburse the victims and keep a closer eye on the accused for any further infractions. If the victims turn out to be "victims", there will be punitive actions. Scamming developers is of course not condoned, however by and large we will try to abstain from revengeful punishments - we rather griefers and scammers try to scam developers and not real players, and will punish accordingly.

User question: "Framing somebody is bound to happen, how will you know what's real evidence and what is not?"
We, meaning high-level developers not involved in any faction gameplay, have access to areas of the game that players do not, and can see if any claims don't seem to match up.

We are unlikely to ban a player based on another player's report/evidence. Most likely bans will take multiple violations (from multiple reports).

User question: "Say I spread a rumor that I found a rare ore patch in the belt but it's a lie to lure people out so I could rob them, would this count as the social engineering aspect of griefing?"
By default, this would be acceptable.

There may be damning circumstances however:
1) If the player lured in is new
2) Spreading the rumor happened in a private chat and not a public one
3) This took place within a safezone

If any of the above happens, we will reimburse the victim and most likely not punish the other player (unless the intention was to specifically lure a new player who doesn't know better - that may be worth some reprimands as it's unwanted behavior).


What about X or Y?

Right now we don't have all the answers to specific cases. We'll work on the detailed rules and mechanics as we go along. While it's impossible to write 100% perfect rules and guidelines, we will aim to be as clear as possible.

As an (early) rule of thumb, grey area stuff will be handled in a way where the attacker gets to keep what they got, but are told not to repeat the offense, and the victim is reimbursed for the damages.

 

[LauriFB]

Example penalties for different actions follows. In general we will have a soft approach to all mild and semi-harmless stuff, even mild griefing and especially all grey area stuff, but on the other hand obvious abuse, cheats and exploits will be handled accordingly.

Technical cheating
Hacking game files or using 3rd party software, devices or services to alter the game or its network traffic will result in a permanent ban.

Exploits used to grief others
Permanent or timed ban.

Exploits used to gain wealth to self
Timed ban or ingame punishment.

Toxic abuse
Permanent or timed ban. Our Discord moderation policy is close to how this will work.

Obvious griefing in bad faith
Harming others in safezones with malicious intent results in a timed ban.

Grey area/light griefing
Not so obvious griefing most likely results in the offender being told not to do that again and possibly in ingame punishment. In some light or unobvious cases the offender can keep what has been stolen and the victim is reimbursed by moderators.

Stealing from devs because we didn't know how to lock things up
We would kindly ask you not to do that again, but if it's our fault, we won't get super-mad. It's however likely that some of the stuff must be confiscated, and some other ingame punishment may take place, especially if this involves unreported exploits.

Publishing exploits
It would help us and everyone playing not to publish exploits, and instead just report the exploit to us and allow us a reasonable time to reply and fix the issue. However, if an exploit is published it's still better than not telling anyone. We will fix it nevertheless. Privately reported exploits will earn a hefty ingame reward, so publicly publishing an exploit makes you miss that too.

Repeat offenders
Penalties will be harsher for repeat offenders.

 

[[QS] Combustible]

Related to the above, infiltrating an opposing faction in a war to steal ship blueprints, or taking part in espionage and social engineering that is not allowed against the general endokind, would not be considered griefing.

So essentially if your actions are provoked (say in a faction war), it’s fine.

Punishment for griefing and other actions will vary based on the severity of the action. We would prefer to use ingame mechanics, such as Saltberia (the Starbase prison) as much as possible. As of right now we do not know if Saltberia will make Early Access launch, so we may have to resort to typical warnings or day, weekly, monthly bans.

Would any of this display on your CV?

but of course repeat offenders will find time to map Saltberia.

I just like this phrase

Also, what if your actions are justifiable from your view but not from others? Say you infiltrated an enemy faction and stole ships in a war. It turns out those ships were trainers and cheap fighters commonly given to new recruits, causing the aspiring pilots to be placed in the infantry? Would this be considered as affecting new players with social engineering, or would it be directly placed on who you socially engineered. I think the infiltration dynamic is amazing and would be very fun, but also very damaging. I hope you guys can keep it in. (Obviously not if it absolutely destroys factions and there is no way to combat it.)

 

[JoelFB]

That phrase is a genuine Emperor phrase lifted from Discord.

CV will probably have at least some connection to moderation actions, full extent yet to be determined though.

Say you infiltrated an enemy faction and stole ships in a war. It turns out those ships were trainers and cheap fighters commonly given to new recruits, causing the aspiring pilots to be placed in the infantry? Would this be considered as affecting new players with social engineering, or would it be directly placed on who you socially engineered. I think the infiltration dynamic is amazing and would be very fun, but also very damaging. I hope you guys can keep it in. (Obviously not if it absolutely destroys factions and there is no way to combat it.)

This kind of faction war/conflict would probably happen outside of the safezones. Generally players who join a faction are already more protected than others, and it'll be up to the faction to educate and protect their new recruits (at least military factions).

This probably has more angles to think about but the way you presented the question, but on the face of it doesn't sound like griefing or social engineering, or at least not the kind that we would look harshly upon. I might even say it sounds like the kind of things we hope to see once they are possible in the game.

 

[ChaosRifle]

A noble goal and huge untertaking to try and moderate. I personally dislike all the spying/infiltration/information wars of eve/star citizen. I dont think teaching people proper OPSEC should be required in a game where people are trying to relax/unwind/enjoy themselves.

Thanks for the clarifications, I would ask just to be perfectly clear if

devices or services to alter the game or its network traffic

includes software not modifying game files (which is what I think is meant) but instead user inputs. Something like joystick gremlin, xpadder, autohotkey for tweaking user input before it reaches the game. (for example, I can map autohotkey or xpadder to interpolate anologue input to extremely rapid keystrokes giving analogue stick support right now while that is not available for most)

 

[LauriFB]

We have to look more closely into macroing, but our priority solution is to reduce the need of macros/macro devices. For example starter jobs are something people could create macros for, and for those we plan to introduce weekly limits, albeit high ones. For other parts of the game, well automation is part of the game and it's more efficient to automate inside the game than outside of it

 

[CalenLoki]

Instead of weekly limits, I'd go for more randomisation of work.
I.e. spawn asteroids in random location in the hall, randomly rotate ships in demolition (and spawn random type, rather than selecting the most money efficient), same for Ikea (if it's coming back) and repair job.

 

[JoelFB]

Thanks for the clarifications, I would ask just to be perfectly clear if includes software not modifying game files (which is what I think is meant) but instead user inputs. Something like joystick gremlin, xpadder, autohotkey for tweaking user input before it reaches the game. (for example, I can map autohotkey or xpadder to interpolate anologue input to extremely rapid keystrokes giving analogue stick support right now while that is not available for most)

We'll have to look into this further, but ideally if you only use such input tweaks to make the game work better with your setup (i.e. enabling controllers), that sounds fine. If the intent is to optimize game features and get an unfair advantage by doing so, that's a different story... There's probably a lot of grey area here that we'll address as it becomes clearer.

 

[XenoCow]

I appreciate you taking the time to think these kinds of problems through. I also like the way you refer to a player's "wealth" as the value of game assets and time is something I trust you will do right, but I am worried about nonetheless.

 

[TheMarksman]

Social Engineering used to steal property and/or used to grief people

Social engineering used to grief others is forbidden. Starbase offers a ton of fun ways to compete with others and win, and those are the preferred methods.

Especially forbidden, if there even is such a thing, is social engineered stealing inside permanent safe zones or stealing from single players, small groups or any friendly groups (such as pretending to be friends for a while and then stabbing them in the back just to cause grief to the others).

There could be some legitimate organization split-ups where the division of property needs to be sorted out. We will look into these case by case. Furthermore, there could be situations where two large factions are at war and someone infiltrates the other and maybe even steals a fighter or two. While we can't draw exact lines for every situation, we will be offering as many examples as possible to draw a clear line. Players are also free to suggest/ask for examples.

So wouldn't that mean that people who start pyramid schemes and try to hide it as a bank would get banned for it?

 

[TheMarksman]

Also, can we get some confirmation on what happens should one attempt to camp the safe zone (Realistically, camp a popular trade route right on the edge of the safe zone/get tailed out of it. Unrealistically, somehow have more than 2000 players render the entire border and have even more shoot any outgoing player on sight.)

 

[Huursa]

How can you uphold such a strict policy in a game with thousands of players?

We will have automatic measures and our own CM/support team, however we will also have player moderators with limited rights inside the game. We are working on this system and will create the rules/processes according to our development progress. It is likely that in the beginning of Early Access a lot of this is still work in progress.

So basically u gon hav pocket mods who do favors for certain tribes?

 

[Captain Riker]

To be honest, I'm not a fan of these features.

For one, you are in no way going to be able to manage the overflow of reports and stuff coming in. Best you can do is try to prevent cheating, and I sometimes have doubts about that. You mention having ingame moderators? I will assume these come from the playerbase like the discord mods. Bringing in the community as mods is not a good decision, and is ripe for abuse. Especially considering these mods already have their own biases and will undoubtedly use their powers unfairly. I will not say names, but we have direct quotes from SB moderators saying they will make sure specific players get banned from the game. Also what powers do these mods have? Kicking from the game? Chat muting? Temp banning? I've been dealing with bad moderation for years. Once a rumor starts spreading by one of your enemies that you hack or cheat it's always guilty until proven innocent. Even considering there is zero evidence of something like that.

Second, this game is advertised as player driven. What is being shown is not player driven. It's just limiting how the game can be played.

The rules also make no sense. It all works around keeping new players safe. Which tbh is a flawed method of doing things. Like it implies that killing noobs even outside the safezone is a bad thing. Just in general it's not a bad thing. Even the idea of luring players out of the safezone is not a bad thing. It's all in the concept of risk vs reward. They risk trusting you and they may or may not get a reward. Tons and tons of successful games work with this method. In most cases, it doesn't scare off any players. All it does is teach them to be better at the game. If the risk is to great for the rewards as a new player, as developers you should increase the reward to make it easier to get new players out there flying again. Do that instead of creating hard to enforce rules that are over complicated.

Also, how do you define new player, and how is the regular player supposed to be able to tell who is new or not.

All you have to do is make sure it's obvious you have a greater chance of being killed outside the safezone. And people should automatically know this include things such as scamming. The playerbase isn't 9 years old. The majority are all over the age of 16, and they can read, think, and weigh risk vs reward on their own. You do not need to coddle them. They are not children. If they don't want to die, then don't leave the safezone.

 

[TheMarksman]

As far as I'm aware, in game mods will not be from the player base. The whole thing also has a lot of asterisks that likely should be clarified.

 

[JoelFB]

Also, can we get some confirmation on what happens should one attempt to camp the safe zone (Realistically, camp a popular trade route right on the edge of the safe zone/get tailed out of it. Unrealistically, somehow have more than 2000 players render the entire border and have even more shoot any outgoing player on sight.)

Camping on the safezone border is probably going to be allowed. Space is big, we don't think it'll be 2000 players waiting for innocent prey at the borders... If it becomes a problem (for newbies or otherwise), we can have some technical measures to prevent this. We will define these cases further at a later date.

So basically u gon hav pocket mods who do favors for certain tribes?

You mention having ingame moderators? I will assume these come from the playerbase like the discord mods. Bringing in the community as mods is not a good decision, and is ripe for abuse.

Ingame moderators will come from developers and the playerbase, yes. It is the only way to get enough people involved.

I will not say names, but we have direct quotes from SB moderators saying they will make sure specific players get banned from the game.

These are serious allegations and if you have proof, please report them to community@frozenbyte.com. There have been a couple of cases where false accusations against certain moderators have been made, so if you haven't been involved first-hand, this may explain. Also, we have recently started being a bit more strict with some memes and jokes, and actually just became a partnered Discord server, so our moderation has gone up one level, meaning that some inconsistencies between old and new messages can happen if looking too far back.

To clarify, Discord moderators do not have any powers on the game side. Certainly not at the moment. In the future it's possible that we'll look into getting some of the Discord moderators to do moderating on the game side as well, but this will be a very careful process. By default we would probably want to keep the moderation teams separate for reasons of separation, and to prevent any potential abuse (basically to prevent in advance what you're saying here).

Also what powers do these mods have? Kicking from the game? Chat muting? Temp banning? I've been dealing with bad moderation for years. Once a rumor starts spreading by one of your enemies that you hack or cheat it's always guilty until proven innocent. Even considering there is zero evidence of something like that.

Exact powers are undecided, but generally the process we're aiming for is something like this:
1) Players file reports
2) Player-moderators check reports, ask questions if needed, and escalate them
3) Developers (CMs, i.e. people working for FB directly) take all major actions such as temporary or permanent bans

Player moderators will probably have some powers - chat muting might be one. We also plan to have most player moderators work in isolation, basically looking at anonymized reports (to prevent reputation bias as you mentioned). They will also be held accountable for their moderation actions. We haven't yet decided how we'll compensate moderators; most likely with ingame rewards such as mentions in the CV.

This is all under design and I'm fairly sure a lot of this will not make it to Early Access launch, so in the beginning we may have to make compromises.

Regardless, player moderators will never be able to issue bans of any kind on another player.

The rules also make no sense. It all works around keeping new players safe. Which tbh is a flawed method of doing things. Like it implies that killing noobs even outside the safezone is a bad thing. Just in general it's not a bad thing. Even the idea of luring players out of the safezone is not a bad thing. It's all in the concept of risk vs reward. They risk trusting you and they may or may not get a reward. Tons and tons of successful games work with this method. In most cases, it doesn't scare off any players. All it does is teach them to be better at the game. If the risk is to great for the rewards as a new player, as developers you should increase the reward to make it easier to get new players out there flying again. Do that instead of creating hard to enforce rules that are over complicated.

Also, how do you define new player, and how is the regular player supposed to be able to tell who is new or not.

It all works around keeping new players safe, yes! We can agree to disagree - we want to protect new players from griefers. Tons and tons of games also have very toxic and unfriendly communities and general bad experience for new players. We will try to be better.

Here's an example of how this could work out:
1) A new player joins the game is having fun, maybe just bought their first spaceship
2) Somebody talks to them in the chat and lures them out of the safezone ("just ignore the safezone warnings, the ore deposit is right here")
3) The player is attacked by pirates and destroyed
4) The player reports this as griefing
5) The report comes to moderators and then developers
6) We look at the chat log and determine that social engineering was used to harm a player in the safezone
7) We issue a warning or a timed ban to the offender (and refund the player's ship most likely)

It is a pretty complicated way, for sure, however we want to promise our players that safezones are safe. We will punish players who go against this. No matter how many warnings we post about safezones and what it means, people will ignore them. That is why we need to have this kind of social engineering rules in place, and we will act on these issues.

Basically, for PvP players - get out of Origin and other starting stations, or at least don't use them to prey on new players (new players meaning any player in these starting stations, just don't do anything shady in general when visiting these stations). I imagine that once players can build stations, a major "free for all" station will be built somewhere with no safezone (other than protecting buildings etc). We/I probably communicated this in a way that wasn't super clear. There will be distinctions between safezones. More info will follow later.

To elaborate further, we don't see this as an either-or situation. We think we can have both - players who just want to play safe, and players who like PvP, and they can both co-exist, and make the universe richer for it.

We'll provide protection for new players in the dev-built stations, but outside of the starting universe, it's going to be a PvP world. You can lure players as much as you want in the overall universe, just not the new players who have just started the game and are not looking for the griefing experience. (Later on we may provide an option for new players to start in a non-safezone location, i.e. high-risk high-reward kind of start, where these rules don't apply.)

PvP players will have plenty of fun, just not at the expense of new players.

 

[Captain Riker]

Alright thanks for clearing up my concerns, and answering my questions thoroughly. I think the anonymous report system is a great idea to prevent reputation bias. I still expect this to somewhat happen though it will be greatly minimized by this feature. I see your point about new players, I'm not in complete agreement, but it should provide a pretty solid system for all parties involved. Just to clarify any player outside the safezone is free game whether or not they're new as long as I'm not purposely tricking new players into leaving it. This is just to make sure that there's nothing wrong with it as I could see people using spawn ships to travel around to avoid being shot when they're actually veterans of the game.

I currently have no more questions. If I come up with any, I guess I'll post em here again lol.

 

[BadNation]

What other things would be considered purposely annoying people inside of a safe zone? I could see that getting abused a lot

 

[TheMarksman]

What other things would be considered purposely annoying people inside of a safe zone? I could see that getting abused a lot

DM Advertising, probably.