1. "THE ROYAL LAND OF KINGDOM TOWNSHIP OF MAGIC! COME CLAIM YOUR OWN KINGDOM!"
Okay, Medieval RP is fine, but stop promising everyone a damn faction. Trying to simulate a real-life world is fine, but at the end of the day, you're not creating a bustling Medieval metropolis. You're creating a fake facade where maybe 3-6 players pretend to be living a Medieval life. Keep civilized areas small, or you're going to create the second problem:
2. EXPAND YOUR OWN TOWNS, BUILD YOUR OWN CASTLES!
Sounds great, but please, Minecraft =/= Reality. People do not play this game 24/7. They play for a few hours tops, then leave, then come back later. You're going to end up with a wasteland of empty houses, empty castles, and no one's going to want to clean that **** up. It's going to be like Second Life all over again.
3. EVERYTHING MUST BE MEDIEVAL!
Okay, I can see where people are coming from. Enchanting, potions, dragons, forge out on your own. Yeah, but please, you do NOT need to shove the Medieval thing down our throats. People log into this game to enjoy themselves, not be burdened down with a platitude of races, rules, gods, lore, etc. The best lore, and the best roleplaying, is created in the moment, during gameplay. Not to say a good backstory can't provide appropriate setting for the land, but keep it simple, stupid.
4. DONT MIND THE OBSIDIAN SKYSCRAPER!
So you're going for a very down to earth, immersive world. Great. You know what knows people's immersion cold on it's feet? A diamond palace. An obsidian skyscraper. A giant floating pyramid. C'mon, please, keep buildings small, low to the ground. Yes, even the spawn areas.
5. DONATE AND BECOME ZEUS!
Okay, seriously, stop this. Mods, I know you need donations, great. But selling power is the WRONG way to do things. You want to gift your donators? Custom titles are great, maybe some private land set aside. But just because some 15 year old throws you a fiver does not make it responsible to give him the power to teleport anywhere he pleases and wave his **** at people.
6. I'M THE ADMIN, I DO AS I PLEASE!
Admins. I know how tempting it can be to build your house with spawned items. I know how tempting it can be do give your friends creative to build their castles. But as a admin, you're basically the boss of the office. You have to be neutral, you have to be fair. Above all, you have to be boring. Being an admin should not be fun. You're basically a cop who sits there and watches the rest of the people. You have to play by the rules too.
7. WE'RE TOTALLY ROLEPLAYERS! McMMO, YEAH!
Okay, roleplaying is entering a server where players have "characters" with first and last names, physical descriptions, personalities, backstories, etc. In-character and out-of-character chat are tools which need to be used, and people will want to have a realistic experience. This means slapping some RPG-like addon on your server does NOT make it a roleplaying server! If you want a fun, dinky survival server, fine, but please do NOT label it RP/Roleplaying. RPG is fine, but c'mon now. Roleplaying is a creeper of a different color.
8. SELF-RESTRAINT?
Treading over what I said earlier, you need to tell your players to have some restraint. Please, -especially- for Medieval RP servers. Small houses that don't disturb the world around them make for a beautiful server. Giant castles for every single player makes an ugly wasteland of too-big, too-much.
9. COME VISIT OUR GIANT PRE-BUILT TOWNS!
Stop, please. Let people build their own towns. Building a town/world for them runs the risk of them not using it. Sometimes people want to build for themselves, and it's better for a growing, evolving world to let this happen.
10. FACTIONS FACTIONS FACTIONS!
This is a dangerous temptation. Factions work on massive servers like World of Warcraft because there's always an army of players logged in at any given time. But Minecraft? Rarely does a faction system amount to little more than "Player A" being angry for some reason at "Player B". And honestly, why not just roleplay such a thing out yourself?
11. ALL-AGES WELCOME!
I know how many people this is going to **** off, given that a large amount of people reading this will be under 18. At the end of the day, we all have to face a simple fact: Age-restriction leads to better roleplay. Yeah, you lose the occasional 15-year old that can roleplay amazingly. But sometimes, sacrifices must be made. Setting a roleplaying server to 16+ or 18+ will reap tremendous benefits, both in story, character, griefing, maturity, and in general quality over quantity.
12. C'MON IN! (BUT SIGN UP FOR MY WEBSITE FIRST!)
No. No no no no NO. Ask for applications through the forum thread. No one wants to go through some stupid, complicated process to sign up, verify, sign-in, and apply to your website, which likely a geocities-esque "free forum" thing. You want to make a website once you're an established server? Great. But you're likely not, so don't make your applicants jump through hoops just to apply.
All of this yelling will likely amount to nothing more than gobbing into a river. But damnit, I TRIED.
Not bad.I agree to most of your opinions, but I believe that you mentioned something related to age restriction. Surely, you understand that Notch himself, believes that there should be no age restriction. This should, set a sort of example, shouldn't it? You also mentioned that age-restriction leads to better roleplay. Perhaps the possibility that most 15 year-olds are mature enough, had slipped your mind in the heat of the moment? Perhaps, that 16 year-olds and 18 year-olds are a lot more stressed. And, should this occur, what if they just simply allowed the fact the server belonged to others, and just griefed? Won't it be much simpler, to just set a type of regioning in the actual world?
Please consider the above, and I hope you understand that these questions are not asked to harm or hurt anyone in anyway. I just wanted to help make things clearer.
My age is not 15. Less than that even.
If you find something offensive, I will remove that offending article with pleasure.
Not bad.I agree to most of your opinions, but I believe that you mentioned something related to age restriction. Surely, you understand that Notch himself, believes that there should be no age restriction. This should, set a sort of example, shouldn't it? You also mentioned that age-restriction leads to better roleplay. Perhaps the possibility that most 15 year-olds are mature enough, had slipped your mind in the heat of the moment? Perhaps, that 16 year-olds and 18 year-olds are a lot more stressed. And, should this occur, what if they just simply allowed the fact the server belonged to others, and just griefed? Won't it be much simpler, to just set a type of regioning in the actual world?
Please consider the above, and I hope you understand that these questions are not asked to harm or hurt anyone in anyway. I just wanted to help make things clearer.
My age is not 15. Less than that even.
If you find something offensive, I will remove that offending article with pleasure.
Yours sincerely,
Damneddesolation
It's a sacrifice. Yeah, we'll miss out on some great roleplayers, but keep a horde of shitty ones out.
But I'm 15! I rollplay all the time! Bla-Bla-Bla. I'm 15 and I AGREE with what you say about 16+ and 18+ servers! Very nice list you set up by the way. Easy to read. :biggrin.gif:
But I'm 15! I rollplay all the time! Bla-Bla-Bla. I'm 15 and I AGREE with what you say about 16+ and 18+ servers! Very nice list you set up by the way. Easy to read. :biggrin.gif:
Thanks! I designed the list so that it could be read and understood easily. Hopefully this gets passed around.
im not much into pr servers, but i totaly agree with what u say. and some of the stuff about selling moderator slots for $5 can aplay to many server, not just pr ones. thats why i give people moderatoir 100% base off their persoanlity and dediocation to my server. 3 thumbs up dude :biggrin.gif:
I liked the post until I came across the age-restriction. That was the one black sheep in the herd. You're putting yourself in a faulty and inneficient system if you have an age-restriction that the immature "Non-RPers, Deathmatchers, Metagamers, Powergamers, etc" are going to lie anyway, and the honest roleplayers will just skip out on the server due to the age restriction showing first impressions that administration is not going to entirely be good for the server. A lot of problems can arise just from an age-restriction, which could be avoided if the great Administrators you have were actually great and understood that age-restriction is a broken limitation in the first place.
Remember that this is the internet, where 14 year olds are 41 and 41 year olds are 14.
I have to say, As someone who is going to open their server soon i may have to reconsider some of my options. For example prebuilt towns. Hey any chance you could add me on skype (steven.bellamy02) and run me through some things that could help my server become successful?
Perhaps, that 16 year-olds and 18 year-olds are a lot more stressed.
Did you just claim younger people are more stressed?
Lack of world experienced coupled with the fact that the frontal lobe of the brain has been proven to not fully develop until the early 20's. And, considering that the executive functions of the frontal lobes involve the ability to recognize future consequences resulting from current actions, to choose between good and bad actions (or better and best), override and suppress unacceptable social responses, and determine similarities and differences between things or events it's easy to understand why the author thought age restrictions were necessary to insure server longevity.
I admit there are plenty of teenagers worthy of consideration but as anyone who's played any shooter on Xbox knows that there are the minority.
I hate it when you join a server with pre-built towns. Everything is already built, so there's no point in staying. :dry.gif:
The whole age/maturity thing can be solved by making the server p2p. Immature players/griefers won't pay just to be themselves on the server when there's so many free ones.(you also solve the problem with the donations, and making incentives for them :smile.gif: )
Other than that, this should be read by everyone who thinks they want an RP server.
People here are making valid points. The frontal lobe discussion is a good one, and the thing is a lot of teenagers have "enabled" the frontal lobe to develop and be used better earlier on. This is basically the difference of whether or not the person has good judgment.
As I see it the age limitation is not very well thought out on which age to choose, perhaps I can bring some valid points up as well to make a decision on a good age to "limit" your Roleplay server with. I've seen that most people who cause problems are 13-14 years old. I've never had any problems 15 year olds of age or older. If there is an absolute need for an age limit I'd say 14 and younger, but to start with one right away is limiting on your server.
About P2P; it's hard to get started as a server owner if the server is Pay to Play. I'm a person who personally scrutinizes reviews of everything to make sure my money will be well spent. Something with no reviews and an admin who hasn't been around the Minecraft Forums much says: Avoid. I wouldn't like to pay for something with no other players and that might close down within a week.
Something I haven't seem discussed is a White List that requires a thorough interview beforehand of the person. Griefers usually look for an open IP to log on and wreak havoc. It's also a nice thing to add that the age limitation has exceptions but you must discuss them in messages to the server owner so that he or she may determine if you are a legitimate roleplayer.
Also it's always good to look at the users registering date for the forums. Somebody who's in the first 50,000 users (About registered sometime in summer of 2010) registered on the Minecraft Forums probably won't be a problem in the server. You can also look at the reputation amount on the users profile.
Make sure your application form (for building privileges, etc.) consists of more than just Name, Age, Minecraft Name, Have You Ever Been Banned Before Y/N?.
You want them to provide this info, but you also want a glimpse into what makes them tick. So pose an open ended question like "What do you expect to gain from our server?" or "What do you have to contribute to our community?"
See what they write, and how they write it.
--A reasonable use of grammar and spelling shows how much respect they have for your community and its moderators.
--A long-winded or meandering ramble about stuff that happened on other servers, or on single player, shows lack of follow through and this person will not be productive or have good communication skills. Both are essential core competencies for roleplaying! I can't stress this enough.
--The smart response shows balance between what he hopes to get from the server, and what he is willing to give. Woe unto him who asks for the kitchen sink and intends to do nothing in return.
--Any response that asks for op privileges or creative mode right off the bat should be tabled. Unless your server is a freebuild creative server with an RP theme. This includes dropping hints about "I was an admin for a previous server". You are responsible for verifying this as true or false.
As for age restrictions, past behaviour predicts future behaviour. If they're 14 but have been playing a minor role fairly well on another server, and they can articulate this clearly and succinctly, there's no reason they shouldn't play. That said, the comments about cognitive and executive function are spot on.
Pay to play: I tend to disagree with any additional barriers to play. But most griefers are opportunistic, and won't bother with your world if it cost them money. Same with immature kids. The more immature they are, the less likely they'll have the parents on their side when it comes time to ask them for the credit card. I realize in saying this I'm advocating a hard financial barrier to entry but hey, it costs money to run a server. It should be universal - no "OP donators" vs "ordinary rabble". Pay to play, period. Not buying concessions or special privileges. That's what iConomy is for.
No fun for admins: Sadly this is the truth. Not because you must restrain yourself - you haven't got time. You ask people for money, you better damn well deliver. Make sure Craftbukkit and plugins are all up to date and working properly. Double check to make sure protected regions are protected, backups are being automated and done on time. Look at chat and keep screen open during the day to listen to what players are saying and doing to each other. Stay on top of applications so qualified applicants don't wait for days to weeks before getting approved. If you have tattletale plugins against cheating, review the logs. They don't catch cheaters and hackers by themselves, you have to review the log and make a judgment call. Finally, show up on the server and travel around looking in on folks. People may need help. They may have questions. You get to know players better this way, by working alongside them and keeping an eye on things. They in turn will look to you as an example of how to role play and what is expected of them.
interesting points, but over all proofed that someone was admin on a server doesnt mean hes a good admin. if i see how many server random call admins, also the servers itself and their owners are different. some dont give a f*** on it after a time, and others are hardcore restrictive :-D
Exactly...I guess I wasn't very clear before. People can say they used to be an admin, but it doesn't mean a thing to me because you can be an "admin" just by running minecraft_server.jar on your home computer.
Ideally every player starts out at ground zero and must show he can be trusted and that he will contribute.
forcing people to pay money is not the way to go, yes griefers wont pay money but many good players also wont. minecraft is no mmo, and if you cant live from it i wouldnt put my life into a server.
minecraft servers are side projects, its a hobby and a "special" way to "play" minecraft. to say "guys pay money and we are griefer save" is true but not the only solution.
Again I would tend to agree that a lot of good players are driven away by the prospect of having to pay to play.
I'm not suggesting making a living from the server. That is not possible. But the costs of running a server are about $40-80 US per month. If you have 20 people each paying $2.50 you can afford to operate a server large enough to comfortably run with 20 people on it. Hopefully, that amount is small enough to allow some good players to consider it. And pay 2 play is by no means a 100% barrier against griefers and havoc. It just means the type of griefing and hacking and cheating will be different. You weed out the opportunists but could still end up with a fair number of x-rayers, thieves, and factionalists cyloning your community.
griefers are simple, its the same thing like increasing the security of a server: you cant completely disable it but if the workload to have a little bit grief fun is too high you wont do it.
one way are pay2play servers or whitelists, but in my eyes u can also do it without having whitelists.
the only thing you have to do as admin to prevent griefing is to have controll over your world. and there are so many zoning plugins out there so you can easy deal with this. automated or half automated... its in ur decition.
if you have a plot system or if you use general zones for different groups of users, you can protect nearly everything against grief.
You would be quite surprised at how many server admins don't fully understand how to use these tools. And how many bad actors there are who do (and use that knowledge to override or evade restrictions)
most users dont read signs or rules and stuff, but if they dont do they have to live with the punishments. even if they are 14 and run crying away.
I agree 110% with this. That said, properly setting up permissions groups will make it harder for noobies to act in ways that explicitly break the rules. This means you have some time to observe them, and they have some time to adjust and learn to fit in. This lets you keep the written rules simple and focused on the basics, while the more subjective things (eg building style/code, strictness about staying in character, etc) they can pick up by osmosis.
Okay, Medieval RP is fine, but stop promising everyone a damn faction. Trying to simulate a real-life world is fine, but at the end of the day, you're not creating a bustling Medieval metropolis. You're creating a fake facade where maybe 3-6 players pretend to be living a Medieval life. Keep civilized areas small, or you're going to create the second problem:
2. EXPAND YOUR OWN TOWNS, BUILD YOUR OWN CASTLES!
Sounds great, but please, Minecraft =/= Reality. People do not play this game 24/7. They play for a few hours tops, then leave, then come back later. You're going to end up with a wasteland of empty houses, empty castles, and no one's going to want to clean that **** up. It's going to be like Second Life all over again.
3. EVERYTHING MUST BE MEDIEVAL!
Okay, I can see where people are coming from. Enchanting, potions, dragons, forge out on your own. Yeah, but please, you do NOT need to shove the Medieval thing down our throats. People log into this game to enjoy themselves, not be burdened down with a platitude of races, rules, gods, lore, etc. The best lore, and the best roleplaying, is created in the moment, during gameplay. Not to say a good backstory can't provide appropriate setting for the land, but keep it simple, stupid.
4. DONT MIND THE OBSIDIAN SKYSCRAPER!
So you're going for a very down to earth, immersive world. Great. You know what knows people's immersion cold on it's feet? A diamond palace. An obsidian skyscraper. A giant floating pyramid. C'mon, please, keep buildings small, low to the ground. Yes, even the spawn areas.
5. DONATE AND BECOME ZEUS!
Okay, seriously, stop this. Mods, I know you need donations, great. But selling power is the WRONG way to do things. You want to gift your donators? Custom titles are great, maybe some private land set aside. But just because some 15 year old throws you a fiver does not make it responsible to give him the power to teleport anywhere he pleases and wave his **** at people.
6. I'M THE ADMIN, I DO AS I PLEASE!
Admins. I know how tempting it can be to build your house with spawned items. I know how tempting it can be do give your friends creative to build their castles. But as a admin, you're basically the boss of the office. You have to be neutral, you have to be fair. Above all, you have to be boring. Being an admin should not be fun. You're basically a cop who sits there and watches the rest of the people. You have to play by the rules too.
7. WE'RE TOTALLY ROLEPLAYERS! McMMO, YEAH!
Okay, roleplaying is entering a server where players have "characters" with first and last names, physical descriptions, personalities, backstories, etc. In-character and out-of-character chat are tools which need to be used, and people will want to have a realistic experience. This means slapping some RPG-like addon on your server does NOT make it a roleplaying server! If you want a fun, dinky survival server, fine, but please do NOT label it RP/Roleplaying. RPG is fine, but c'mon now. Roleplaying is a creeper of a different color.
8. SELF-RESTRAINT?
Treading over what I said earlier, you need to tell your players to have some restraint. Please, -especially- for Medieval RP servers. Small houses that don't disturb the world around them make for a beautiful server. Giant castles for every single player makes an ugly wasteland of too-big, too-much.
9. COME VISIT OUR GIANT PRE-BUILT TOWNS!
Stop, please. Let people build their own towns. Building a town/world for them runs the risk of them not using it. Sometimes people want to build for themselves, and it's better for a growing, evolving world to let this happen.
10. FACTIONS FACTIONS FACTIONS!
This is a dangerous temptation. Factions work on massive servers like World of Warcraft because there's always an army of players logged in at any given time. But Minecraft? Rarely does a faction system amount to little more than "Player A" being angry for some reason at "Player B". And honestly, why not just roleplay such a thing out yourself?
11. ALL-AGES WELCOME!
I know how many people this is going to **** off, given that a large amount of people reading this will be under 18. At the end of the day, we all have to face a simple fact: Age-restriction leads to better roleplay. Yeah, you lose the occasional 15-year old that can roleplay amazingly. But sometimes, sacrifices must be made. Setting a roleplaying server to 16+ or 18+ will reap tremendous benefits, both in story, character, griefing, maturity, and in general quality over quantity.
12. C'MON IN! (BUT SIGN UP FOR MY WEBSITE FIRST!)
No. No no no no NO. Ask for applications through the forum thread. No one wants to go through some stupid, complicated process to sign up, verify, sign-in, and apply to your website, which likely a geocities-esque "free forum" thing. You want to make a website once you're an established server? Great. But you're likely not, so don't make your applicants jump through hoops just to apply.
All of this yelling will likely amount to nothing more than gobbing into a river.
But damnit, I TRIED.
EDIT: spelling corrections. P:
Everything is opinion. But these make sense. I've seen too many dead, empty, failed "RP" servers die because of these reasons.
Please consider the above, and I hope you understand that these questions are not asked to harm or hurt anyone in anyway. I just wanted to help make things clearer.
My age is not 15. Less than that even.
If you find something offensive, I will remove that offending article with pleasure.
Yours sincerely,
Damneddesolation
It's a sacrifice. Yeah, we'll miss out on some great roleplayers, but keep a horde of shitty ones out.
No offense.
Thanks! I designed the list so that it could be read and understood easily. Hopefully this gets passed around.
GHzCraft IP Address: GHzCraft.no-ip.org
Appreciate it, man. Just gotta get the word out :smile.gif:
Remember that this is the internet, where 14 year olds are 41 and 41 year olds are 14.
Did you just claim younger people are more stressed?
Lack of world experienced coupled with the fact that the frontal lobe of the brain has been proven to not fully develop until the early 20's. And, considering that the executive functions of the frontal lobes involve the ability to recognize future consequences resulting from current actions, to choose between good and bad actions (or better and best), override and suppress unacceptable social responses, and determine similarities and differences between things or events it's easy to understand why the author thought age restrictions were necessary to insure server longevity.
I admit there are plenty of teenagers worthy of consideration but as anyone who's played any shooter on Xbox knows that there are the minority.
The whole age/maturity thing can be solved by making the server p2p. Immature players/griefers won't pay just to be themselves on the server when there's so many free ones.(you also solve the problem with the donations, and making incentives for them :smile.gif: )
Other than that, this should be read by everyone who thinks they want an RP server.
As I see it the age limitation is not very well thought out on which age to choose, perhaps I can bring some valid points up as well to make a decision on a good age to "limit" your Roleplay server with. I've seen that most people who cause problems are 13-14 years old. I've never had any problems 15 year olds of age or older. If there is an absolute need for an age limit I'd say 14 and younger, but to start with one right away is limiting on your server.
About P2P; it's hard to get started as a server owner if the server is Pay to Play. I'm a person who personally scrutinizes reviews of everything to make sure my money will be well spent. Something with no reviews and an admin who hasn't been around the Minecraft Forums much says: Avoid. I wouldn't like to pay for something with no other players and that might close down within a week.
Something I haven't seem discussed is a White List that requires a thorough interview beforehand of the person. Griefers usually look for an open IP to log on and wreak havoc. It's also a nice thing to add that the age limitation has exceptions but you must discuss them in messages to the server owner so that he or she may determine if you are a legitimate roleplayer.
Also it's always good to look at the users registering date for the forums. Somebody who's in the first 50,000 users (About registered sometime in summer of 2010) registered on the Minecraft Forums probably won't be a problem in the server. You can also look at the reputation amount on the users profile.
You want them to provide this info, but you also want a glimpse into what makes them tick. So pose an open ended question like "What do you expect to gain from our server?" or "What do you have to contribute to our community?"
See what they write, and how they write it.
--A reasonable use of grammar and spelling shows how much respect they have for your community and its moderators.
--A long-winded or meandering ramble about stuff that happened on other servers, or on single player, shows lack of follow through and this person will not be productive or have good communication skills. Both are essential core competencies for roleplaying! I can't stress this enough.
--The smart response shows balance between what he hopes to get from the server, and what he is willing to give. Woe unto him who asks for the kitchen sink and intends to do nothing in return.
--Any response that asks for op privileges or creative mode right off the bat should be tabled. Unless your server is a freebuild creative server with an RP theme. This includes dropping hints about "I was an admin for a previous server". You are responsible for verifying this as true or false.
As for age restrictions, past behaviour predicts future behaviour. If they're 14 but have been playing a minor role fairly well on another server, and they can articulate this clearly and succinctly, there's no reason they shouldn't play. That said, the comments about cognitive and executive function are spot on.
Pay to play: I tend to disagree with any additional barriers to play. But most griefers are opportunistic, and won't bother with your world if it cost them money. Same with immature kids. The more immature they are, the less likely they'll have the parents on their side when it comes time to ask them for the credit card. I realize in saying this I'm advocating a hard financial barrier to entry but hey, it costs money to run a server. It should be universal - no "OP donators" vs "ordinary rabble". Pay to play, period. Not buying concessions or special privileges. That's what iConomy is for.
No fun for admins: Sadly this is the truth. Not because you must restrain yourself - you haven't got time. You ask people for money, you better damn well deliver. Make sure Craftbukkit and plugins are all up to date and working properly. Double check to make sure protected regions are protected, backups are being automated and done on time. Look at chat and keep screen open during the day to listen to what players are saying and doing to each other. Stay on top of applications so qualified applicants don't wait for days to weeks before getting approved. If you have tattletale plugins against cheating, review the logs. They don't catch cheaters and hackers by themselves, you have to review the log and make a judgment call. Finally, show up on the server and travel around looking in on folks. People may need help. They may have questions. You get to know players better this way, by working alongside them and keeping an eye on things. They in turn will look to you as an example of how to role play and what is expected of them.
Exactly...I guess I wasn't very clear before. People can say they used to be an admin, but it doesn't mean a thing to me because you can be an "admin" just by running minecraft_server.jar on your home computer.
Ideally every player starts out at ground zero and must show he can be trusted and that he will contribute.
Again I would tend to agree that a lot of good players are driven away by the prospect of having to pay to play.
I'm not suggesting making a living from the server. That is not possible. But the costs of running a server are about $40-80 US per month. If you have 20 people each paying $2.50 you can afford to operate a server large enough to comfortably run with 20 people on it. Hopefully, that amount is small enough to allow some good players to consider it. And pay 2 play is by no means a 100% barrier against griefers and havoc. It just means the type of griefing and hacking and cheating will be different. You weed out the opportunists but could still end up with a fair number of x-rayers, thieves, and factionalists cyloning your community.
You would be quite surprised at how many server admins don't fully understand how to use these tools. And how many bad actors there are who do (and use that knowledge to override or evade restrictions)
I agree 110% with this. That said, properly setting up permissions groups will make it harder for noobies to act in ways that explicitly break the rules. This means you have some time to observe them, and they have some time to adjust and learn to fit in. This lets you keep the written rules simple and focused on the basics, while the more subjective things (eg building style/code, strictness about staying in character, etc) they can pick up by osmosis.
Dude, talk about it. I seriously would treat that damn server so well. SO WELL.
And I'm happy people are RAAAAAGING about the age-restriction. Proves my point.
EDIT: Oh hey whats this doing here.