How to make enemies and alienate people

An Airbags guide to making enemies and alienating people

Posting twice in one month! New year brings all sorts of changes.

    Had it with your New Year's resolution? Bitter about the cold indifference of the world or continued existence of other people? In our previous installment we spoke about all the nice things you can do when interacting with others in our planned game. Now it's time to get nasty. 

    There are times, though rare for me, I've wanted never to speak with or see someone on the internet ever again. Sometimes you can block them from directly messaging you, but in a community atmosphere that's just not a solution. Enter our concepts for keeping those annoying individuals at bay. Please let us know if you spot a way someone could use these to abuse other players.

Mute

    An unlimited list of individuals whom you have listed from which to not hear chat. Should you be in a group or puzzle chat their contributions will not be shown.  This may make for some confusing chats, but is as close as we can get to sticking our fingers in our ears. This blocks all forms except Captain/Officer announcements on your current ship and Crew / Flag announcements.

    Enemy list

    The enemy list marks a character or group as an enemy to your character. They will receive a notification that you have marked them as an enemy and their name will appear in red should you cross paths with them. They cannot board ships you own, purchase at shops you own, offer to trade with you, or job on your ships. This also applies to you. They can be part of your alliance but not your crew. If you and they are captaining ships the ship name will be marked. This also prevents them from joining your crew. This does not mute them, but you may also add them to the mute list.

    You can decide if this will also apply to alt characters, and if this will prevent them from joining in parlor games or other multiplayer functions.

    If both players have each other marked as enemies they can engage in pvp either in the skies, if they are both captaining ships, or fights in person. 

    You cannot mark a player in your own crew as an enemy.

The Black Mark

    The black mark is the most serious of social attacks against another player, this is also the most restricted in application. This is primarily intended to block trolls. This marks them as an enemy for yourself, but also prevents them from shopping at crew owned shops, boarding crew ships, participating or being rewarded for associated crew or flag events, or jobbing with your crew. It also shows up when they attempt to job with anyone else you or your crew is allied with. It costs merit to use, the amount depends on how long it lasts and the rank of the one issuing it. 

    Only a captain or active officer of a ship or event can issue a black mark. The player must have been aboard the ship during the current voyage, or during the event. 

  

 A person in power, such as admirals, governesses or royalty can also black mark individuals. This costs more merit but can alienate them from entire flags, and everyone sees their black mark regardless of affiliation. Black marks also carry across characters, while the character will be black marked and blocked from interactions with the associated crew/character, any alt characters will simply have the black mark noted for any in the flag to see.

    Hopefully this will keep those wishing to be annoying trolls to a minimum as they will be quickly ostracized. A black mark can be removed by the issuing character, or by a superior officer of their crew. Players can see who and when a black mark is issued against them. 

    Note: A black mark is not a replacement for reporting cheaters, hacks, abusive behavior or language. Those will still be sent to our monitoring team for punishment. 

    In other news, I've been making some visual upgrades and improvements to the game, adding wind lines to the island and ship. Sounds are also getting added! Once we've gotten a few completed I'll do another video.

    We continue to have discussions on our discord, usually daily, where we are refining ideas and getting input. Join in and drop us a line:

https://discord.gg/2weKnqWmQ5

See our site:

https://www.potentialgamestudios.com/

Or drop a comment here!

Till then, fair winds!