Is there any way to protect myself from this besides never ever accepting a package from anyone ever again? I’m quickly running out of humor when it comes to this particular prank.
I believe they cant send you any if you have wounds 3.
I suppose you could make a note of whose packages are likely to contain rats, and refuse to accept packages from that person? Or those persons, in case you’ve attracted the attention of multiple rat-senders. Which makes me wonder what you have done to deserve that.
edited by Gillsing on 12/12/2015
[quote=Gillsing]I suppose you could make a note of whose packages are likely to contain rats, and refuse to accept packages from that person? Or those persons, in case you’ve attracted the attention of multiple rat-senders. Which makes me wonder what you have done to deserve that.
edited by Gillsing on 12/12/2015[/quote]
Yeah, it’s always a different person each time. They make my acquaintance, send a regular package or invite me to a social action in order to gain my trust, and then send me live rats. It’s getting to the point where I don’t really want to accept anymore packages or even calling cards because I can’t trust anybody. But if I turn them down, then I feel bad for potentially snubbing someone who was being genuine.
I just wanted to know if there was any way of defending myself against these packages or if I’m just going to have to stop accepting packages from anybody (at least for now)
Perhaps you could decline the package and then send a note explaining the curious circumstances you find yourself in? This would protect you and the feelings of the sender, should she, he, it, or them be benign.
[li]
never accept a package, stay at 3+ wounds- but then they can poison you, which is cheaper, even, and roughly as lethal, so you’d be unable to accept wound-healing socials.
Although, doesn’t the rats appear as a cat-box? just tell them you can’t accept cat-boxes. accept everything else, except maybe wound-heals.
edited by Grenem on 12/12/2015
Are the accounts freshly made? Because if it’s the same person sending the rats, but different accounts, that’s harassment.
I concur that this behaviour seems out of the ordinary.
Check the various mantelpieces of those sending you rats. If they’re all newly made, I’d consider e-mailing Failbetter and seeing if this might, indeed, be the same person.
It doesn’t seem like the same person…all the accounts look very different with different history and “personalities.” So I’m guessing it’s not harassment…just a bunch of people all having the same idea to play a “hilarious” prank on me.
I mentioned this to my friend who introduced me to this game and she thinks it’s because I’m RPing as a minor but still nasty villain from another game. Though I myself am never nasty to any other players, and do my best to be helpful and friendly, if a bit eccentric, people who have played this other game may be taking it upon themselves to “punish” the character I’m RPing as.
It makes sense and honestly, if I’d known about this rat prank when I signed up, I’d probably have chosen to RP as someone else :P But I’ve come too far with this account to change things up now, plus the character has been a lot of fun to RP as. So while the prank is annoying, I probably invited it, so I’ll just suck it up and not accept any more packages and consider it the price I pay for choosing to RP as someone with a lousy reputation.
Thanks for your advice, everyone
Carrying grudges across games is unacceptable behaviour. If you are correct in your assessment, then these players who are harassing you are very uncool. Not to mention puerile.
– Mal
[quote=Kukapetal]It doesn’t seem like the same person…all the accounts look very different with different history and “personalities.” So I’m guessing it’s not harassment…just a bunch of people all having the same idea to play a “hilarious” prank on me.
I mentioned this to my friend who introduced me to this game and she thinks it’s because I’m RPing as a minor but still nasty villain from another game. Though I myself am never nasty to any other players, and do my best to be helpful and friendly, if a bit eccentric, people who have played this other game may be taking it upon themselves to “punish” the character I’m RPing as.
It makes sense and honestly, if I’d known about this rat prank when I signed up, I’d probably have chosen to RP as someone else :P But I’ve come too far with this account to change things up now, plus the character has been a lot of fun to RP as. So while the prank is annoying, I probably invited it, so I’ll just suck it up and not accept any more packages and consider it the price I pay for choosing to RP as someone with a lousy reputation.
Thanks for your advice, everyone[/quote]
May I suggest that these players prank you in Rat Sending Simulator 2kXX | Storynexus.com instead? They’ll get their “revenge” while leaving your FL account unharmed.
There IS a property “nolongeracceptingrats” that if nothing else, the staff can set on you.
Yeah, naming yourself after a fictional villain doesn’t mean you have to just deal with the Rat Attacks. If you feel upset you should definitely write to these individuals to let them know, and if it persists definitely send in an email to FBG.
edited by Sara Hysaro on 12/13/2015
I guess I assumed it was something I just had to deal with because it’s part of the game mechanics. I mean, if it’s harassment, why is there an option to play the prank at all? I assumed that since that option was available, it was an acceptable prank to play on others and therefore the people who did this to me weren’t technically doing anything wrong.
That said, I have let the people who’ve done it know that I don’t like it and several of them have been apologetic and none of them have pranked me a second time. But that doesn’t keep me safe from the next person who’s played "Borderlands 2" who sees my account and takes it upon him/herself to "punish" me. There seems to be a healthy supply of them :P
Something like that would be perfect. Is it only available via the staff or can you acquire it in-game somewhere?
Thanks again, everyone.
I was NOT present during these events, but perhaps this will give you an idea:
Http://community.failbettergames.com/topic21221-ratmas--bad-jokes-never-die.aspx
edited by Parelle on 12/13/2015
edited by Parelle on 12/13/2015
[quote=Kukapetal]I guess I assumed it was something I just had to deal with because it’s part of the game mechanics. I mean, if it’s harassment, why is there an option to play the prank at all? I assumed that since that option was available, it was an acceptable prank to play on others and therefore the people who did this to me weren’t technically doing anything wrong.
That said, I have let the people who’ve done it know that I don’t like it and several of them have been apologetic and none of them have pranked me a second time. But that doesn’t keep me safe from the next person who’s played "Borderlands 2" who sees my account and takes it upon him/herself to "punish" me. There seems to be a healthy supply of them :P
Something like that would be perfect. Is it only available via the staff or can you acquire it in-game somewhere?
Thanks again, everyone.[/quote]
It’s a vengance option, and a malicious option for pranking purposes. If you wanted to, you could work through everyone on the list of active forum members, for instance, poisoning them or rat-boxing them, and that wouldn’t be harrassment. But there’s a level of repetition where you’ve either been very bad this hallowmas- rejecting dozens of individuals invites even as you recieved them- or you’re being pestered by an individual who’s making alts to make your life miserable.
[quote=Grenem]
It’s a vengance option, and a malicious option for pranking purposes. If you wanted to, you could work through everyone on the list of active forum members, for instance, poisoning them or rat-boxing them, and that wouldn’t be harrassment. But there’s a level of repetition where you’ve either been very bad this hallowmas- rejecting dozens of individuals invites even as you recieved them- or you’re being pestered by an individual who’s making alts to make your life miserable.[/quote]
Nah, I was good this Hallowmas, and I’m pretty sure it’s not one person with a bunch of alts…just various random players who don’t like the guy I’m RPing as and are trying to "get" him. I honestly don’t think any of them mean to be exceptionally nasty toward me…they probably just think they’re being mischievous. It’s just starting to get annoying.
Though you could if you wish ask the staff to give you Accepting No Further Rats, note that it prevents other players from sending dead rats and boxed cats to someone with the quality. I haven’t heard of any non-staff member ever being given the quality but if enough people bother you then who knows.
If you ever end up getting it, please at some point take the action on Iron Republic Day 23 that requires the quality. Nobody knows what, if anything, is behind it so finding out would be pretty cool.
I know this isn’t quite what the truthseeker is suggesting, but I hope that no one comes away from this thread thinking they should report live-rat-senders to Failbetter, and I really hope no one would actually get punished just for using a harmful social action.
If (as here) someone is being sent live rats once from many different unrelated players, that’s annoying for the recipient, but each sender only did it once, and that should hardly be considered harassment.
If (not this situation, but more like what the truthseeker said) someone is repeatedly sent harmful social actions from the same player, the recipient could simply decline any such invitations from that player in the future. Declining a social action is free (doesn’t even cost an action, unlike accepting), though the sender still pays an action and (in this case) the cost. The sender will either stop, or be throwing a lot of rostygold down the drain (down a well, perhaps?), with the only cost to the intended recipient being a click. Nothing worth reporting.
If someone were to send a rude message with their rats that was against the ToS, or create a bunch of other accounts to trick someone else into accepting a bunch of harmful social actions, that would definitely be worth reporting and having punished.
Now, as for the situation this thread is about: I don’t think the live rats are that bad, especially if they can only be sent when you have below wounds 3. You could simply continue accepting whatever they’re disguised as (what are they disguised as?) and just take the wounds and laugh about it. You could decline any of that type and feel safe in the knowledge you probably won’t be unexpectedly attacked by rats. You could remain above wounds 3 permanently unless you have a need to lower them—and if you’re worried about poison as someone mentioned, decline all wounds-healing invitations, legitimate or not, since you don’t want to get poisoned or to lower your wounds past 3—and you’d be safe (if in a little pain) this way too. Or the developers could read this thread and the suggestions within, and either give you Accepting No Further Rats, or make it available to everyone.
One thing you could try is to change your Storynexus name to "Please No Live Rats" or something along those lines. When you send Social Actions you see both their character name and their Storynexus name, which might deter some people from their mischievous bit of fun. And yes, reports on people should only happen if someone is sending requests with negative messages or with alts, but it couldn’t hurt to talk to FBG about the situation in general if it’s upsetting you.
Another possible option is to set your profile as private and put that message in your forum signature. Though I’m not sure if the senders are random or from Hallowmas - if it’s the latter than this won’t help, though the first option could.
edited by Sara Hysaro on 12/13/2015