I doubt people would care all that much. It's the same logical principle around giving noobs free items and helping them. Not that we think that it adds to the value of the server, but players staying longer on the server is correlated with a higher server population. Even if some of them discovered the trick it wouldn't matter, because by the time we got a decent enough population we wouldn't need to trick anybody anymore.
I dislike helping noobs/ giving them free stuff, but I noticed a higher server population when more people were doing it. That's why I've been doing it. Most people don't care about the 'principles' of the server's actions as long as they're having fun.
There could even be an algorithm that controls how many there are. Like this pseudocode:
Look, all I can really say is that I find this idea unethical. I do not want to play on a server that lies to people.
If it was a temporary experiment and there were just a few bots that never talked, maybe it wouldn't be awful. But I think it's the wrong thing to do.
I don't think I can convince anyone else of this, but it is a moral line I am not willing to cross. If this comes to a vote, I am definitely choosing no.
To me it's like a survival mechanism. Like when people in society have enough resources, everyone can be civil and polite. But when society starts to break down they have to do some unsavory things which ultimately helps everything go back to normal as much as we don't want to admit it. The people who try to wait around "till things get better" just die. The server needs survival mechanisms; something proactive. I don't "like" the idea either, sort of like how I don't like the fact that I'd probably resort to cannibalism if faced with starvation. But I probably would, and you probably would too.
I don't think waiting around is going to work this time. Let's think outside the box and try some new ideas. Let's implement kits, bots, moving spawn, etc. The worst thing that can happen is the death of the server, which is slowly happening anyway.
Morl0ck, I'd agree with that, but there are tons of ideas to improve the population that don't involve lying to anyone. I realize as much as anyone, and more than most people, that we need to do something about the population. I just strongly prefer certain other ideas, for example, moving the spawn point.
I dunno, it seems like I'm the only one who this bothers. Maybe it's not so bad, I just have a strong gut reaction against it. I think there are a few less desperate things we should try first.
There is a poll starting soon (but at an undefined time) containing several ideas, mostly having to do with changes to spawning and the spawn area. There is also a suggestion for the mods to clean up floating junk to reduce spawn lag. It seems like everyone has different reactions to what they consider to be too drastic of a change, and what they consider to be a small, obvious change. I like the idea of moving the spawn point away from 0,0, but a lot of other people seem to find that drastic. Similarly, some people think it's an obvious choice to add bots, but to me that feels like a large breach of ethics and a change to the server. If the majority really wants this, I guess it will be good if it might improve server population. I just like other recent ideas so much better.
A. Pippenger wrote:Morl0ck, I'd agree with that, but there are tons of ideas to improve the population that don't involve lying to anyone. I realize as much as anyone, and more than most people, that we need to do something about the population. I just strongly prefer certain other ideas, for example, moving the spawn point.
I dunno, it seems like I'm the only one who this bothers. Maybe it's not so bad, I just have a strong gut reaction against it. I think there are a few less desperate things we should try first.
There is a poll starting soon (but at an undefined time) containing several ideas, mostly having to do with changes to spawning and the spawn area. There is also a suggestion for the mods to clean up floating junk to reduce spawn lag. It seems like everyone has different reactions to what they consider to be too drastic of a change, and what they consider to be a small, obvious change. I like the idea of moving the spawn point away from 0,0, but a lot of other people seem to find that drastic. Similarly, some people think it's an obvious choice to add bots, but to me that feels like a large breach of ethics and a change to the server. If the majority really wants this, I guess it will be good if it might improve server population. I just like other recent ideas so much better.
Don't pretend to be good and noble, tons of fucking servers lie to their players all the time and get away with it. The internet is a hateful place and being honest and on the side of chivalry to the moronic playerbase that is minecraft isn't going to get you anything but higher bills.
The only thing that could rescue this idea from being 10000% lame would be if we also hooked the bots up to one of those sex-chat popup scripts:
<NOOB> Where are everyone?
<Sabrina> I'm not wearing any underwear.
Also, we'd have to mix in one or two "JamieAndCece" bots, and a rarer "Lyserbot" that screamed random rascist obscenities and always responded to private messages with "I tell Yukar!".
