Shattered Kingdoms

When I stepped into the Rules Manager role, I always held the opinion that someone welcome on the game should be fully welcomed on the game. I felt that people should not have their playing privileges caged off or be overly scrutinized until they're no longer welcome. I've made the case for Syn to have unhindered access to leadership positions and opportunities in the game, even in light of his previous siteban. The case was made for his ban being lifted before I came back, and I respected that as far as I could without prejudice. There's no coming back from a second siteban, so I was unwilling to throw the prospect out lightly.

All that being said, the body of evidence lately has stacked up to a point that there's no turning back from the following steps. I fear I may have over-compensated my defense of Syn by letting him get away with his antics for too long. Unfortunately, we gave him enough rope to hang himself and remove his welcome from our community.

I will concede some good that Syn brings to the game:
-Helpful to newbies
-Willing to take the time to teach people things about the game
-Moderate knowledge of game mechanics that are useful during gameplay discussions
-Willing to lead groups to difficult areas
-A beneficial leader to those on his side when it comes to keeping the game world interesting

I don't want to take away what he's done, beneficially, for the game. While I acknowledge this good, I have to acknowledge the full body of evidence against him:

-Vindictive and spiteful to an OOC level with anyone who disagrees with him or RPs against him (both logged instances and can be found on the forums)
-Unwilling to play with concessions to sportsmanship in regards to opposing factions
-Unwilling to communicate with decency during forum conversations with people who do not agree with him (all can be found/searched for on the forums)
-Logged instances of OOC in-game harassment
-Unable to keep from wildly baseless accusations of both other players and staff (which can all be found on the forums)
-Logged, proven inability to play by the rules: caught multiplaying once, and caught abusing NPC adjectives during PK in another.
-Logged instances of OOC out-of-game conversations suggesting an inability to clearly separate IC motivations from OOC motivations in the game

The staff, nor other players in this game, are here to keep the walls of the game world standing simply to allow people to vandalize them in the name of freedom of communication. It is not the staff nor playerbase's responsibility to tolerate unstable outrages and poor attitudes from anyone. We only have to be so objective to a point when it comes to tolerating people.

It is outlined everywhere that it is within the administrator's rights to remove people from the game environment. This is never done without serious documented proof and complete unwillingness of a player to work within the boundaries set for him by the rules of the game.

In light of the entire body of evidence against Syn, he has proven yet again that he is a detriment to the game as a whole. The staff, after deliberation, has moved forward with the decision to reinstate Syn's siteban.

Please, do not foster this kind of attitude in our game environment. If you catch wind of Syn attempting to return through whatever means, please report it to us.

-Sadr

Congratulations. You have fix all the items in the game and now you ban the only person who can lead to all the advantures.
And also i see you have ban him for only OOC reasons EXTRA LAME!!!! If you don't like him in Forums simple Ban him from the Forums!

This should have been a post in the afterlife punishment thread. Right? Or is this meant to be an open discussion?

This is just sad. New forum etiquette rules prevent me from elaborating.

I'm not going to be afraid of the staff anymore. I'm putting my foot down and if I get in trouble for it then at least I made my thoughts known.

I'm going to defend Syn here and mention that most of his "harassment" on the forums happened to be in direct response to staff harassment of him. Staff harassment that was not explained but instead glossed over and ignored while the staff members engaged in equally as base counter harassment of Syn. But it's okay when other people do it, apparently. As the days go by, I am losing more and more respect for the staff as a whole. He may not be welcome in "your" community, but Syn was always a fair player that helped those that needed it and generally only treated others in pvp as they treated others. That makes him welcome in -my- community and better than a handful of other characters like Reizei or Driokt that seem content to drag the experience down for others as a whole if they don't get their way and unable to seperate IC from OOC. PVP in itself is not meant to handhold and sportsmanship does not apply. No one has ever been banned for junk-looting before.

I think, as a whole, the staff needs to come to terms with one important idea that seems to be ignored lately: You were all, at one point, players of this game. You are not better than the current players just because you were invited to become a staff member. Your time is not more special than a regular player's because you do volunteer work. You are not above criticism. You are not above the rules. Get off your high horses and either work with the community or get out of it.

I am very close to simply packing my bags and leaving along with all my friends and every friendly review I've ever given for Shattered Kingdoms. I'm begging you to reverse your course of censorship, thought policing, player favoring, and cross holding.

This is already getting out of hand. Jreid the imm will remove your posts if you do not calm down.

I'm guessing up for discussion in regards to transparency.



You should probably remove that one, if the use of Cabal Ability, Spell or Skill is what he was using. Otherwise you might as well tag this to everyone with that ability to do so. The ability to disguise/Blend in to cause chaos or gain a tactical advantage is not what I would call abuse, otherwise why would you have spells/skills in the game granting you the ability to do so?

This is a reinstatement of an already earned ban. When Syn was allowed back, it was only on the condition that he keep his nose clean. Even after being caught multiplaying, Sadr was lenient and let him stay. Yesterday, he was caught violating the rules specified in 'help adjective'. Specifically, he PK'd another player while using a controlled NPC that shared the same adjective, race and gender. (And the NPC landed the kill.) No cabal abilities were involved.

The post was intended to be an announcement in The Pantheon. The poster did not realize they lacked privileges to lock the thread here until after it was posted, and I was only available for a few minutes via mobile throughout the afternoon.