Server Manifesto

The MegaMekNET Manifesto, copied from the Announcements forum

Goal of the server

The goal of this server is to provide a persistent environment where players can engage in individual battles framed into a campaign context, made of:

a) Intentionally limited resources to be wisely managed,

b) Battling factions where players can develop teamwork sub-environments if they want,

c) A planetary territory conquest system to measure the relative performance of the involved factions,

d) A small partition of the environmemt for those players not interested in c).

The goal is considered reached when the playerbase is able to have fun and exciting games in such a context.

This articulated goal might seem, at first glance, more appropriate for something better described with "a game matching service", but actually is not true: a simple game matching service wouldn't have all the complexities deriving from keeping a persistent environment like MMNet 3025, nor will take into account the side-effects of points a), b) and c), that make campaign progression far more complex than a simple "match random players in a random encounter".

Balance of fairness vs. canon

The two principles we want to follow are:

a) Give a fair, homogeneous, levelled playfield to players, where everyone has an at least fair, but non-overwhelming chance to success at personal, group and campaign level goals (not necessarily in this order), as much as it is possible,

b) Replicate the original FASA 3025 pre-fourth succession war galactic setting, tech level, names and rules, as much as possible.

More often than not, a) and b) will collide, and the choice whether to sacrifice a bit of canon in favor of fairness, or to unbalance fairness to recreate a more canonical feature will be made on a case by case basis.

Neither principle is absolute, neither will be given priority over the other a priori, both will be considered in every decision. There won't ever be a perfectly levelled playfield, nor we plan to recreate exactly the FASA battleground in all its details. Fairness means everyone is given a chance to compete. Canon means not everyone will be able to compete succesfully.

Die hard fans of FASA's 3025 canon will be disappointed at the number of exceptions we made. Casual players will be disappointed by some ultra-conservative choices. The mixed result might not appeal everyone. That's by design.

What we offer the players

In the free time we want to dedicate to the server, our best effort goes to provide a gaming environment suitable for the goal stated in 1, with applying principles from 2. We offer them a reasonably packaged client to play with. An appropriately dimensioned and networked machine to play on, and a forum/website to support the server.

There's no warranty on the availability of either, however. The two environments are hosted on professional ISPs with consumer-level contracts paid by the administrators, and are subject to consumer-level outages and malfunctions.

We offer our time to try and improve the server, tweak the settings to better provide an enjoyable experience, take care of the software and the systems to raise the stability and reliability of the environment, lookout for intentional or unintentional abuse (of these principles, of the rules, of a generic respectful behavior), give our decisions with regard to disciplinary actions, remove uncorrectable players from the environment for the ultimate goal of a better campaign experience, and in general administrate the campaign as we think it's better fitting, having heard the feedback of players and moderators alike.

What we demand from players

Knowledge and respect of the rules. Respect of other players. Extreme respect of moderators.

We demand they don't engage in "rule lawyering" defined as nitpicking on every diminituve detail of the wording of the rules, so to twist their meaning and leverage loopholes to gain any kind of advantage (either real or perceived) by doing so. This is not a tribunal, we don't want lawyers and attorneys.

We require players behave in a mature and reasonable way AT ALL TIMES. The more the feet stomping, the less our tolerance.

We require that any problem the players might have with the system or with other players be notified FIRST to the staff. No self-enforcing justice here. Everything can be fixed, but if you want to be the lawmaker, the judge, the jury and the executioner, better start looking for some other place to play into.

What we expect from players

Fairness, honesty, sportmanship, maturity, understanding that in the end this is only a videogame.

We expect that they are not annoying, that they understand what to do when they're being answered "stop it", "drop it" or "it's enough".

We expect they don't think of themselves as having any special privilege when they perform "game duties" with more dedication than the average player.

We expect them not to behave like morons.

How can players contribute

They contribute by playing the game following this manifesto's principles and the rules.

They contribute by participating in the forum, by the rules of the forums, and providing suggestions, ideas, opinions, feedback and viewpoints to improve the server.

They can contribute more materially by donating their time and collaborate with server development tasks, when needed.

They are welcome to share any tool they eventually wrote/prepare that elaborate any kind of campaign data, but are then required to follow administration's indication on how to distribute the elaborated data. Either you keep them for yourself alone, or if you share them, share by our direction.

They contribute by adhering to points 4. and 5. of this list, without the need to ENFORCE these points onto them.

They can, if they want, contribute to their own factions with providing help, organizing strategies and hints, offering off-campaign training, etc. always keeping in mind that this kind of "work" gives no additional benefit other than the warm fuzzy feeling of having contributed something to a cause shared among some other players.

Last but not least, they can contribute materially with money donations to the staff, to help them offset the server/bandwidth costs. Donations are entirely voluntary, don't entitle the donor any privilege, and are recorded publically in an appropriate section of the forum.

Player rights

The hard fact is that no player has any right on this server. The very moment anyone thinks he's entitlted some right to anything related to this server, he'll be sadly mistaken. We try our best to provide a reasonable chance to be able to play here, but this expectation cannot be leveraged to pretend a certain service availability, or even a certain service level.

For further summary of this point, check http://www.mekwars.org/archive/viewtopic.php?t=246

Leadership

A touchy issue.

But there's a new twist to the subject for this cycle. Be sure to check http://www.mekwars.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35

Promise of fairness

We admins promise here to behave in a reasonable way with everyone, to hear anyone's stance, to evaluate any feedback provided us, and never dismiss a priori any opinion. Dismissal due to futility is always possible.

We don't believe in knee jerk reaction effectiveness, so when we will reach the "it's enough" level, rest assured that it's REALLY enough. Any drastic decision, like permanent bans, firewall bans, or other resolutive actions, is taken after seriously pondering the situation. But we won't just warn everyone forever: there's a time to speak, and a time to act, and when the latter comes, we're extremely convinced that the former has last long enough.

Support of CBT

As much as possible, we want to support the original game we all love. This means giving credit where it's due, promoting the purchase of original material, encouraging users to refer themselves to the original and actual creators of the game system, namely Catalyst Game Labs and WizKids.

In this light, we also warn we won't tolerate any form or shape of "piracy" on their products, including, but not limited to, using MMNet's resources to share/send/receive their PDF publications.

See Also: Rules, Rules Addenda