Scribblings - Problem Players

If your game manages to be successful you will start to attract people you have never heard of. This has plus and minus points. On the one hand it means your game must be quite good while on the other hand you will get some players who will not enter into the spirit of the game.

Types of problem players you will face are:

Foul mouthed children

Usually these are young players, they will generally be fine until they discover something in the game they can not do or until they feel they have been wronged (the by game, sysops or another player). Once they have been triggered they will usually start to scream and shout abusive language at any one who will listen. There is no way of trying to explain to these people, ban them and more often than not they will return with a name that is offensive. Sadly these types of players will continue to be trouble, the best policy is to be firm and vigilant against them.

Manipulative players

These people spend their time 'messing' with peoples minds on line. They are usually masters of disguising their true characters, they will gain the confidence of timid players and abuse that trust. More often than not this type of player  cares little for the game they only want to 'power play' with others. When it is finally made known to the people who run the game you are faced with a difficult choice. The best plan is to ban or remove this type of player sadly this will carry with it a high cost. These players spend almost as much time building their myth as they do messing with peoples minds. You will spend a lot of time defending your position and having to listen to people saying how 'wonderful' the culprit is. You can not go into the details of why you have removed them (after all that only adds fuel to the fire) and that leads the less well informed players to assume you operated a witch hunt.

Cheaters

These players spend all their time finding loop holes and bugs to get around your system, they come in two flavours. The first type find bugs because they like doing it, they usually abuse the bug for a short while and then report it. This type of player is keen to show you how the system can be twisted and they are an asset to the game. Sadly there is a second type, these people will find bugs and exploit them, they share these bugs with friends or even strangers so they can show people how 'clever' they are, these people are dangerous, they are adding little to the game and you have to take a firm line with them. Unlike other types of problem players these can be saved, you just need to spend time at it.