Shattered Kingdoms

Well, curses don't get posted in the punishments thread, so that explains why you haven't seen that...

And like I mentioned earlier, I get along reasonably well with most of the imm-staff, so I usually don't have to worry about curses. That being said, I think it's kind of an absurd overreaction to multiply the small and large curses by a factor of 10 and 5 respectively, just because we suddenly realized that a veteran player can quest a level in an hour or so if he or she has enough good quests that haven't been completed yet.

Just follow the rules and everything will be okay. I mean you really have to f it up to get a curse to begin with.

The only people who should be worried about this are folks who commit very serious offenses or those who repeatedly break the rules. None of us would penalize a status without sufficient consideration. That much you can be certain about.

Previously, curses meant little to nothing on more levels than just that of XP. If anything, players will think twice now before deciding to do something illegal. At the same time though, it gives us the option of more leniency. There was sort of a gap between a level curse and much harsher punishments.

I guess I'm on my own here. So I'll cease my whinging. I just hope that the circumstances in which the "smallest available" punishment is given out is somehow tempered by the change in severity of that punishment. I'd hate to see people getting level cursed for having a giant help them recover their equipment. (link) Or for force repopping inappropriate NPCs etc.

That being said, I'll get out of everyones hair.

Have fun everyone.

I doubt it would have mattered, but the original announcement had a typo. The smallest penalty is now one-half level not one level. Regardless, the middle stages are all one level or higher and the top end really is five levels instead of formerly a single level.

Regardless of how it might have been 10 years ago, immortals can only penalize a person once per day, which is one of the reasons why the higher penalties were necessary. It's better for an admin to just get the punishment over as quickly as possible rather than having to hunt you down in subsequent days for another round.

If people are worried that this might screw them, then my first reaction is: Mission Accomplished! Don't do the crime and you won't have to do any time, so the size of the penalty is irrelevant unless you are one of those people who like to cheat, behave badly or blatantly violate the bounds of your character's racial/faction/alignment role-play.

Nobody gets a curse just for having a bad description, no matter how dumb it is. You always get a request to change it, and if you don't do it immediately, you get dragged to a non-escapable room to help you focus on writing it up. If a player got a penalty during this process, it is invariably because the player started cursing at the admin trying to enforce the rules or causing some other ruckus, both of which come under the heading of "behaving badly".

If you fly off the handle at the first sign that you aren't going to get your own way, then maybe you should be concerned. But the solution to that is to curb your own behavior or else suffer the consequences.

I'm tired of having abuse heaped on administrators who are just trying to enforce the rules when the real problem is that a player has anger management issues. It's also not fair to all the players that manage to play without causing problems that 90% of all available administration time is spent dealing with the same handful of problem players month after month.

As always, if you feel you have been treated unfairly, DO NOT throw a fit. Escalate the issue to other imms such as Achernar, Viltrax and myself. DO NOT expect an immediate reply.

Here's my process: At the very least, I will always read your complaint. I will then (90% of the time) relay your complaint to the admin email list for discussion. Resolving this discussion may take several days. When there is a resolution, if it was favorable to you, then an admin (not necessarily myself) will respond to you at the next available opportunity. If it wasn't favorable to you, you may not ever hear a response.

Regardless of what happens, move on with playing the game. Or quit. Although to quote the ruthless PK segment on the forums, if you can't HTFU, take your punishment and learn from it, maybe you weren't playing the right game to begin with.

One of the best things about SK is that it draws in all types and creates a very diverse environment, but if you are going to constantly cause problems and monopolize the time of the staff, then I'd rather you moved on. Hopefully bigger punishments will help people realize which of those two things they need to do, instead of continuing to cause more problems.

♥

This is pretty much exactly the explanation for this change that I was hoping we would get. Thank you man.

Once I got cursed a tick for being part of a 5-minute (or longer) OOC conversation with a group led by Peso.

That curse wasn't for OOC communication. It was for being in a group led by peso.

I once received a full level curse for ICly acknowledging the existence of one of peso's characters. Apparently that sort of behavior is frowned upon, and we are supposed to just ignore him.