Shattered Kingdoms

Just to clarify, I believe jreid was knowingly listing off other more blatant ways he could have violated the same rule, but if not and so everyone knows, asking someone to do things ICly for you via OOC channels is of course something against the rules. I seem to share your general sentiment that it was a more esoteric violation, but sadly still a violation.

That said, I do appreciate the honesty shown and really hope you find somewhere to enjoy yourself even if you choose to make it somewhere else. At the end of the day this is a community and we should want everyone who is or has been a part of it to be as happy as possible. Thank you for your contributions over the years, and have a great night.

I agree with this statement. At the same time, if you think this is my point you're missing it completely.

Thuban didn't just use past offenses to determine the severity of the punishment. If that was all he did, I wouldn't even argue it, because in general it makes sense.

No, Thuban would use past offenses to determine -whether or not your were guilty at all-. Someone else could do the exact same thing you were punished for, and Thuban would have chalked it up to "a good player making a mistake" and not punished them at all. I'm not putting words in Thuban's mouth either: Thuban admitted to this in logs, he's on record as having said "If someone else had done this exact same thing, I would likely just warn them, but since you're a repeat offender I can't give you the benefit of the doubt." That's pretty close to a direct quote, specifically the "benefit of the doubt" phrase.

Not to stretch the analogy too far, but to use the legal system example, imagine if a judge ever said "Well, normally the prosecution is required to prove 'beyond a reasonable doubt' that you're guilty, but in this case since you stole some candy as a child and cheated on a test in high school we're going to lower the standard of guilt to just 'if it's reasonable to believe that you're guilty'". You would feel like that was a pretty unfair judge, wouldn't you?

Going beyond that, Thuban seemed to have a tendency to more aggressively watch players that had already committed past crimes. Simple logic dictates that you can't snoop everyone at all times, and one repeat offender was punished for using the take command while doing a leveling quest on a low-level character, which is most certainly not a character that you would think would be spied on otherwise.

These three aspects of Thuban's management combined meant that if you got "on Thuban's bad list" then you were subject to be closely monitored and punished for things that other players wouldn't have been punished for, with an escalating level of punishments at that. That's why people ended up getting permabanned for "take" and getting nailed with multiplaying violations for scanning the who list with a dead character: Both of these are things that the playerbase at large viewed as acceptable and not problematic before the punishments happened. Players got banned or had multiple characters deleted for offenses that would have warranted at -best- a warning for other players.

At best, Thuban's approach to punishments are indistinguishable from someone who had an agenda against certain players and targeted them for punishments. I'm not asking you to take a dump all over Thuban, but please don't downplay or misrepresent the way that he handled things. It had an overall strongly negative affect on the playercount.

Seems like the player base here is looking for two things. One some sort of more active marketing campaign that would address our image on our sites and other mud sites.

Two, reassurance that while punishment is now being handled well again, that the staff understands some of the way it conducted itself was very cruel with regards to people's time and energy spent improving sk.

I was around for jreid getting the who list punishment, and we tell each other pretty much everything, and I'm not aware of anyway that was used to benefit him. He had been keeping that age death character from getting deleted by logging it on once in a while. The fact the who list had more info on one char than the other wasn't intentional. So when you hose hundreds or thousands of hours of game time and the characters developed by it, you lose players for life. Then you have a tiny who list. Deletions like that, if we equate just $10 of value to a persons time, cost them massively....for typing who....for no benefit...


The staff is doing great, the players are doing great. We just need more of them and need to keep our noses clean and heads on level, as staff and players moving forward. I hope we can reflect better on our community here and other sites, but that will be hard as long as the perceived imm vs player agenda exists. I say perceived because it is just as important as real or not. In the air force if you're perceived a way...you are...sorry...doesn't matter if you are or aren't. I think it realtes to this community that if you are "perceived" as being a staff who is biased and overly harsh in rules enforcement, it might as well be real. And you have to address that perception.

I think demonstrating your ethics in game and on this board are part of that solution. The player base wants something more from that staff in terms of a fresh start with guarantees on both sides.

There are two staffers famous for rules enformcement blundrs. I respect them each for different reasons. I am glad they are staff and I was happy to play with them. However in our community of nerds you're going to get some odd behaviour and some of the staff has had some super off behaviour. And scrub/jreid was hosed by it severel times. He really isn't nor ever was a cheater, like some of the rest of us, and he got hosed. I would understand why he wouldn't want to play. He improved the color coding of tlaxcala for us all. thanks scrub. Needed to happen. Staff knew it was good a idea and implemented it, but dude still got hosed. Hard.

Algorab is in a tough spot, trying to uphold the currently quality of the game and his work as rules manager. Those things are solid. Having to defend the actions of the staff is going to bog down.

Converse of that, these players need some invitation back, and some reassurance that those types of punishments were part of a season on sk that has passed. When you get down to, just about anybody one one side or another of a thing, think they're right, think they're the good guys. Often times I think they are, I think it's rare on side is truly evil and the other just.

The staff is doing great with rules management now. I think perhaps past members thought they were doing their best, which they were, but people make mistakes and certain personalities are better suited to certain roles.

We want a more transparent fair rules system and we seem to have it finally. Thank you.

Past that I think the staff and palyers who wish to help need to market the game and invite people back to play again or for the first time.

Players want a reassurance this type of foolery is over and it's hard for them to think things have changed if the staff has to defend past action so hard, that isn't really defensable. I'ts understandable and forgiveable. It's not really something you want to stand behind 100% though and that's okay. We're moving forward just....say things aren't like that, people did their best, things got weird on all sides.

The goal should be to get people to play by the rules. Instead, the goal has been to eject people from the community if a case can be made that they broke the rules. We need a fundamental shift in our understanding of what the point of "enforcing rules" even is. We are a small community that has been playing together for years. When the staff explicitly tells us they would rather get new players to replace us rather than try to make things work with us, you get the situation we are in right now. Stop acting like the rules are so important. Let's get the game back to a functional state and THEN worry about who killed what NPC or used a bug to avoid wasting.

The forum rollback was extremely sketchy and it's embarrassing that actual staff members are defending it. There was an active discussion happening for several days and then suddenly it's all gone. Forum activity has been dead since because we realized that you didn't want a discussion. The staff could have made an effort to pick up the conversation where it left off, but instead you made threads about what music you're listening to OOC.

Edoras nailed it in his post about Thuban. I feel like this is the best interpretation of Thuban's reign, from the players prospective. It all seemed very unfair and target. It was a bad time for SK. Every week or two, something sketchy rules-wise would happen. I'm glad it's over.
JReid, tough to see you go. Magua was one of my best mentors in SK. Even though the last interaction we had was you and Thakathi betraying me, it was always good times.
Dojo. "That season of SK is over." I like the wording.

It'd be a long road to recovery. But it starts with Algorab doing what he's attempting to do. Lets see if he can make it happen.

I already posted that there was a hard drive failure and our backup was (embarassingly) not up to date. The only reason we even had a backup that recent was because the hard drive had also undergone a previous (but recoverable) hiccup. That should have been a clearer warning but I had just assumed backups were happening regularly. That's my fault.

But if you are going to continue to imply that I'm lying about the situation, then we have nothing more to talk about. I'm tired of the conspiracy theories (which is all they are) and I'm tired of defending myself and the rest of the staff (because it's very difficult to prove a negative).

Algorab is free to continue this conversation. He is the rules manager and he is making the calls now regarding future enforcement actions. I'm happy that people are satisfied with the work that he's been doing. But there isn't going to be any mass forgiveness programs and there aren't going to be any apologies for past actions that were rightfully taken to enforce broken rules. We prioritized fair play and holding people accountable for breaking the rules over the (dubious) possibility of maintaining player count by turning a blind eye. I have zero internal conflict over that decision. If you can't accept that what I've said is the truth, then you should find another game to play that will promote more fun and happiness in your life.

I think this is THE best mud out there. It's taken years of service from the staff, especially the implementor Dulrik. The job doesn't pay, it costs Dulrik hosting fees. The talent and love poured into this game by the staff and players over the last two decades is incredible. Some people even poured themselves into the game and didn't get to see it launch. We are a special community. And it's taken everyone's time and effort to make this place great.

I wrote a long version of this several times. I can't really address it.
To the players, I think the storm has passed, we can play, it's all good. A lot of neat changes, and staffing has been great.

To the staff, your rigid refusal to admit any role in the perception problem we have, or meet anyone halfway or quarter way or a sixteenth way isn't helping anyone. You guys are great, but you aren't perfect, and it seems perfect is the record you're going for in terms of what you can advertise by your word and deed in the community, but that isn't realistic. I don't really care to hash it out, but there has been some things, you don't want to admit it explicitly or even in tone moving forward to reassure your loyal valuable players, that's fine. We know and love you guys. We're used to it, but that rigidity is keeping players away who have some trust issues. Even if they are unfounded they could use your help getting over them

First let me thank dicemistress, trosis, jreid, and the rest of you for your input here. In particular, dicemistress raised a lot of well-considered and useful feedback that I plan to keep looking back to.


Trosis knows that I have great respect for him as a player, so please know my response is not personal. But a comment like this is extremely frustrating, because it's simply not true. It's probably true that more people were banned during Thuban's time as rules manager than in years prior. But the number of actual bans isn't even CLOSE to that exaggerated overstatement. It's very difficult to discuss matters like this when, as staff, we strive to make true and accurate statements in conversations but our detractors speak in hyperbole.

It gains us nothing to forget or ignore the rampant cheating and bug abuse that was prolific in the game before Thuban took up the mantle of rules manager. Thuban used the snoop command, along with a host of other tools, to catch and punish a lot of players who were engaged in routine cheating, gaining unfair advantage over rule-abiding players, often for years prior to being caught. Players who responded by stepping up their aggression, personal attacks, and resumption of rule-breaking may have received harder punishments and some eventually received game bans.

I don't understand the willingness of players to ignore the cheating friend's behavior, especially in the case of repeat offenders. They are responsible for the consequences of their own chosen actions. Too often, players decide their friend's ban was "unfair" based on popularity, not on his/her choice to break game rules. If you WANT to believe that your buddy is right, or if you WANT to believe that the staff is out to get somebody, there's not much that we can do to convince anybody otherwise.

Except in extreme cases, the standards for a 'realistic' chance at appeal typically has been no more than an acknowledgement of the cheating/abusive behavior, an agreement to abide by the rules in the future, and understanding that the ban would be resumed if the problematic behavior resumed. I don't think that's unreasonable.

Over the years, we've taken several steps to improve transparency in rules administration. There are complaints about how somebody in 2016 may have received a different punishment for a rules infraction than somebody else received in 2010 or 2013. Some people claim this is due to nefarious conspiracy, but in reality it's because of the various different stages of rules modification that we implemented over several years, openly on these forums, with the requested and welcomed input of the playerbase, over that same timeframe.

Personally, I hate rules enforcement, and I'm bad at it. The last time I jumped in to enforce a rules decision, I screwed it up terribly. 2-3 years ago I hell'd somebody half-assed while I was waist-deep elsewhere in GRP. Once accepting my mistake, I've been very open and transparent admitting that error (among others- 20 years of playtime, 11+ as staff is bound to lead to some mistakes). To this day, I don't know who the player was, and I've never been able to apologize directly. But I still catch flak for it; transparency and admitting my mistake has made NO difference to anybody holding a grudge over it; certainly no forgiveness. I embrace my humanity and I spent years fighting for any and every player to have the right to come back to SK with the opportunity for a fresh start. These have often been the players who dislike me, and often the same people who refuse to extend me the same courtesy. But there's got to be some lines drawn, and sometimes enough is enough.

tl;dr: Maybe Dulrik said it better.


PS- I actually did log into the site-that-will-not-be-named for the first time in over 2 years, because I heard that the person who maintains the site (whom I respect) had made a posting. Then I read the comments associated with that post. I read some pretty off-the-wall lies about Dulrik, Thuban, Meissa, and myself, generally posted by players who have cheated, harassed others, and been banned. That behavior is disgusting and reflects the absolute worst of the internet. I have NEVER heard anybody on staff talk about even the worst player in such ways. I'll never go back to that site again.

If you were administering a game, would you go out of your way to invite that kind of toxicity and hateful slander into your place of refuge & recreation, with no reason to believe it won't resume/continue? I witness enough despicable behavior in real life, I'm not interested in spending my free time subjecting myself to the same. It's completely ludicrous to assume that I must respect people who behave that way, that I must extend my hand and open the game to people who have treated- and continue to treat- the implementer, staff, and other players with such outrageous disdain and disrespect. Yes, it's the internet, but Dulrik's choice to offer a free game platform online does not obligate any of us to submit ourselves to that.

'

Certain people I would agree. I wouldn't have them back. Not all of that stuff on there is lies though. And that is where we are at an impasse. That is also why people feel players cheating is forgiveable, the staff has done it. Historically and in these accusations you reference. There is some truth to it. Sure is that site toxic, are people throwing all sorts of stuff out there. Yes. But whatever percentage is true, is true, and it's not 0% which is why your blanket denial is frustrating to people like trosis. I like you admit you own learning experience with rules management. That is what people are looking for. Just something. I commend you for that, and the staff in general. But that toxic garabge is unresolved issues, that I think are best left in the past. And I would encourage players and staff alike not to take a hard line on debating it because there is truth on both sides of that issue and the only good possible from going over it is if it brings us closer together which I don't see it doing.

The habitual offender law allows the judge to impose a stiffer sentence for repeat offenders, however, it is not used as a tool to determine guilt. The law also measures the previous offenses beforehand.