My dream and group New Furre Friends has been running since sometime in February (yeah, we didn't have stats going back quite that far.)  In that time, I have only had to ban a few people from the dream.  One was banned after being told to stop certain behavior and refusing to do so.  One was banned because of some VERY rude whispers sent to me after they too entered and behaved like an idiot.  (Had they simply left and not sent those whispers they would not have been banned.)  The third was banned after asking to be removed from our group, throwing a tantrum over something that involved being removed from one of the beekin groups, and then wanting to return to our group though a consensus was reached not to let them back in.  The ban was put up to keep them from returning and harassing others over the fact that they were declined membership upon their return to the game.

Each one of those players brought the ban action onto themselves, yet each and every one of them decided to whine and cry about it being unfair after it was put in place.  The first player to recieve a ban claimed that they did not know they were doing anything wrong and should not have been banned.  How can someone claim this when they were whispered to stop several times by more than one dream officer and still refused to do so?  The second makes me laugh because they basically say that they do not like our group or dream yet the ban is unfair.  Even if banning this idiot because of what they whispered to me personally would be technically unfair (we have no rules on who gets banned for what, so that is not the case,) why would they care if they disliked our dream and group so much?  The third would have had more merit in their claim had they sincerely changed their behavior and simply wanted a second chance.  However, in explaining why they were banned (in order to prevent harassment of others for not accepting them back into the group) this player instead chose to make threats of using their Beekin status to steer others away from our dream and tell other Beekins to do the same.  How can you justify that behavior at all?  In fact, how can a player like that justify even being a Beekin volunteer for the game if they think that they can try and Lord it over other players?

The banish command and feature is in place within the game to keep people out of a dream who are not welcome there.  Sometimes players tend to forget, when you enter a dream of another player you do so as a guest, not someone who has a right to be there.  If the owner of that dream or the appointed staff who are given the authority to maintain that dream decide that they do not want you there, then you should simply walk away and not even try to come back.  Bitching and whining about it only shows others exactly why you were banned in the first place.

Like it or not, sometimes it is necessary to ban someone and their alts from a dream in order to prevent further issues from that player arising.  Some people think it is best to warn the player several times before a ban is put in place, some think you should only use a temporary ban and if they do not change their behavior, then place them on a more permanent ban.  I personally can see why both would be wanted, yet when it comes down to it, most players who stir up trouble simply do not learn from their mistakes and continue down the same road.  Permanent bans really are only permanent as long as the dream stays loaded and the owner keeps them in place, so really they can be removed if desired at a later time.

I don't like banning players from my dream.  It means less people chatting and having fun.  However, those who do end up banned are not the sort of players who we want around in our dream.  My only advice to those players who do wind up on the wrong side of the ban hammer somewhere, simply shut up and walk away.  Doing that shows more decorum and respect for the dream, its owner, and others who visit it than you have shown prior to the ban.

-Targath

So the new version of the New Furre Friends dream is up and running.  Only a couple of minor bugs/errors that I have noticed so far.  Looking back on the previous dream's stats, I must say I am impressed considering it all started with just me loading the dream to meet some new friends and thinking about starting a small group to help new players who stumbled in.

Our old dream's stats for visitors since around March 10, 2008 were:

## Dream Statistics: Total Visitors ##
This dream has seen 12500 visitors total.
102 visitors have arrived today.
This dream has had a maximum of 161 visitors in one day.
And an average visitor total of 71 per day.
Dream Uptime: 175 days.
17 days, 396 hours, 23779 minutes since last upload/restart.
## End Dream Statistics Report ##

I personally see nothing wrong with those numbers at all considering our dream and group are relatively small (or so we have been told) and do little to no advertising in the game or the Furc forums.  We have only ever attended one Group and Guild day event as well, so having an average of 71 visits per day is not too shabby at all, in my opinion.

I would post stats for number of members, but honestly that is hard to do as we have a few who use alts and our ACTIVE membership is a bit smaller than the total who have joined.  We do have a steady group of 5-10 at any time who frequent the dream on a daily/semi-daily basis and some members who are more active in other dreams or the beekin program.  The last count I had was over 50 members signed up, but we do continue to gain members every week.

If you have not stopped by New Furre Friends yet, I encourage you all to do so.  We are a social and help group who are more than welcoming to new furres and old.  We don't have a lot of rules and simply ask that visitors uphold our dream's E8+ standard while there and members take a short pledge before they are accepted.  You can find our dream loaded in Acropolis near the Naia portal or send a join request to our bot (newfurrefriends) for an autosummon.  Our dream URL is found on top of our website as well: http://nff.110mb.com

We may not be one of the busiest dreams on Furcadia, but we try to be one of the friendliest ones.  Til next time,

-Targath

Well, I have never been much for blogging, but well I have decided to give it a shot, so here goes.  Not much to post about here in this first one really.

There is some news though for those who may visit NFF (New Furre Friends, not that other more popular one) from time to time.  We are changing our dream.  It's a major change in that a big chunk of our map is disappearing, but the major features of the dream are still in place.  Yep, even with the dream package we are going smaller instead of bigger.  Big dreams are not always easy to find other players in, so hopefully this will help.

Also, we are adding in a help desk near the entrance to NFF so that new players (or others) may see who is willing to help them in our dream and ask for help easier.  The seats in the dream still allow the text over your heads as well, but hopefully our desk will be staffed a good chunk of time for others to see.

Really, I think some players will like the new layout a bit better as it makes gathering together easier in the dream and finding others a bit simpler.  We also are just getting rid of portions of the dream which see little to no use and are not very helpful to new players, like our game boards.  Aww, no more checkers or chess.  Now I can't lose anymore!!  Yay!  (Only kidding)

Anyway, the new version of the NFF dream should be uploaded for everyone to see on Monday Sept 1st.  We don't have any major events or such planned for it, but we will post about it on the Furc forums and hopefully get a few interested parties to stop by.

Also, be sure to check the NFF forums (http://s9.invisionfree.com/NewFurreFriends/) for more info and a couple fun things we are doing.

Targath