Shattered Kingdoms

I'd just like to take a poll to get a general feel for how people think Thuban is doing and the impact he's having.

If you have any feelings about this topic that you think are shared among more people, post a reply and I'll add them to the poll.

It strange for this to be a multi-option poll, especially given that three out of the five options are negative, one is neutral, and only one is positive.

While I don't think Thuban is perfect, I think he's done well as Rules Manager, and I think it's rather short-sighted to say "someone else would do a better job." I'm personally glad that cheating which had been pretty much standard fare or viewed as acceptable by the playerbase for quite some time now is being caught. Threads like these are rather predictable, because no one likes being punished.

The two complaints I have in Thuban's dealings are A) how the changing of interpretation around Rule 1 was initially handled, however that's now coming full circle and being brought more in line with SK's tradition, so I'm certainly not complaining about that now, and B) The stance that repeat offenders are not only watched more closely and given harsher punishments, but -also- are judged for guilt more willingly as well.

I honestly haven't had to deal with him on my current char, nor did I think I'd have to on my last. But there are a LOT of people ranting and raving about him for various reasons. I want to know, is he a reason people aren't playing the game? Because let's be honest, people AREN'T playing the game. I don't really believe Thuban wants people to stop playing because of him, so if people are honest and it turns out his style is causing people to play less, I really believe he'll adapt. That's really all I want, is for more people to play and for the game to be as fun as possible. I don't really care to bash anybody for anything.

Nobody wants to have rules enforced against them, true.
No IMM wants to be in charge of enforcing them, either.

Thuban is tasked with the wholly undesirable job of ensuring that people are playing by the rules that have been established. You can disagree with the rules, and disagreement is fine and well. We have discussed the rules among the staff and have varied opinions on them (like Rule 1 especially). But the time to argue the case for a rule being dumb is not when you're actively breaking it. You've agreed to follow the rules by logging in. You've agreed to being subject to the judgement of the Rules Enforcer by logging in. You've agreed to the punishments that can be given when the rules are broken by logging in.

Now, you can argue that the man himself could be more diplomatic in some instances, but who couldn't we argue that about? I've seen nearly every staffer and player reach the limit of his or her patience before. It's never pretty, and it's never desirable. BUT it's incredibly frustrating to present to a player that a rule was, in fact, broken and then have to have an argument about why X-player shouldn't be punished for it or why it's not such a big deal or why you're an a-hole for enforcing the rules.

There have been exploits that work around the intended nature of the game, and yes that is bug abuse, but to my knowledge, when these do pop up, nobody is punished before a ruling has been made. If you see something that makes you question whether or not your character should or shouldn't be able to do something, you should ask. We will give you an answer as soon as we're able. But, saying that, I want to point out that the passive aggressive "IF NOBODY ANSWERS ME RIGHT NOW, I'MA ASSUME THIS IS LEGIT AND KEEP DOING IT" addendum to a prayer (you know who you are) that asks such a question a good way to put the respondent (often Thuban) in a defensive mode when he finally logs in and sees it.

IMO, he's doing great. Not perfect, but who the hell is?

I think he has made players go away. But that should happen if he bans them.

So I guess Thuban rules.

In case this was news: If you cheat or if you think that cheating is okay, I do not want you playing Shattered Kingdoms. Please find another game where everyone enjoys cheating against each other instead.

Not entirely sure ezaya had cheating against other players in mind when he made a trigger to emote upon losing invis. Kind of a shame that it carries the same punishment as triggering for xp or pk. Imo that can scare players off. Don't take my word for it though. Take a look at the who list. 1 person on. I know it isnt the problem players - they are all gone.

Disclaimer: I don't want to go to war with thuban. We all know how that would play out. But in the spirit of transparency, I'd like to voice my view.

I feel as though the main concern that a large portion of the Playerbase has with Thuban is that often times the punishment doesn't fit the crime. And I know we have the "repeat offender" clause, but sometimes, alternative punishments should be dealt out.

Examples:
Azar and his back door into the Iron Citidel. (I think it was IC.) that is something that was coded Into the game. Someone has used it in the past. And I'm sure some Imm created it for their mortal or their friends. Is that shady? Sure. But it exists. He didn't exploit a bug, as far as I know) and he didn't do some sort of glitch. He utilized the mechanics in the game to his advantage. (I do not know of exactly how this back door worked, but I heard that's what got him banned) I've been told that the only way to know about this is through ooc knowledge. But everyone except for first time players use ooc knowledge learned from previous characters. Eq locations. Trainers. Vials. Everything. I normally just Rp it by saying "I read in the history books" and it all works out. If using the back door was illegal? Then it should have been sealed off long ago and it wouldn't have been a problem.
Proper punishment: armor is junked, mid level armor given to replace, and the bugged area fixed.
Given punishment: Banned.

Next we have the infamous "take" command. I'm pretty sure the Playerbase made their voice heard when the legitimacy of this concept was discussed in the forums. An overwhelming percentage of the Playerbase did not see this as a bug and would have utilized it if they'd known about it.
Proper punishment: removal of items obtained this way. Perhaps no more than a five level curse tops, to make up for the advantage the player gained this way. (Even that seems extreme to me based on the pbases view)
Actual punishment: forgotten.

The multi playing sorc.
Simple concept. Gm Sorc enchanting for an alt.
based on how new the player is, I can see some leeway here. First time offender and new to sk? Junk the armor. Never do that again, kid.
Multi offender for the same thing? Deleting one of the characters.
Highly repeated same offense: deleting all characters controlled by this player.
Eventual ban if lesson has not been learned at this point.
Actual punishment: player chose to delete and quit? No harm no foul. But my view stays the same.

Brand new player playing with a proxy.
Yes proxies are not allowed. But since this was a first time offense, it would have been very simple to cold storage, "never play behind a proxy again. If you do, you're deleted. Now log out and come back from your home IP."
Could have been a slap on the wrist. But thuban chose to throw the book at this player and deleted the character.

You see, it's not the fact that everyone wants to cheat. It's that we feel as though things could be handled more delicately. More justly. More effectively with the playerbases best interest considered.

When Iveha got banned, I was in the middle of a civil war and he was my only ally. I had a chance with him. And his ban for IC harassment, was it, ended up putting me at a greater disadvantage than I already was.

That's just my two cents.

Just because you brought up those four examples, I feel like I should give them the proper context because some are misrepresented, which perhaps just goes to show how easy it is for minor perceptions to greatly alter the appearance of an issue.
Azar's player wasn't banned for cheating to get Somnium's armor. Also, I'm in agreement with anyone who claims that the backdoor, if created by the IMMs who created Somnium's tower for their mortal alt access, were cheating and I'm glad that Thuban closed up that hole. No one in their right mind, however, would claim that Azar obtained the armor legitimately, even if it was through a backdoor some dishonest IMM created when the area was created. Even then, Azar's player wasn't banned for that, just the character was deleted. It's your second example of Azar's player using the "take" command that got him banned, but that was merely the last straw in a series of warnings and punishments through exploitations of mechanics for easing the leveling process.

Patrisaurus logging on for his sorc to enchant gear for his level 1 characters is blatant multiplaying and is pretty indefensible. That's probably the most cut and dry case out of the bunch, because even Pat admitted to it. We can all accept that multiplaying isn't acceptable even if sorcs are in low supply and move on.

The "brand new player playing from a proxy" knew to remove his title (which should have said "New to Pyrathia" if he was legitimately new), lie about his alignment to get resurrected by a lightie, and then immediately go to the judge in Exile to report said lightie for attacking him on resurrection (And the crime happened in the wilderness, meaning that the player knew to go into the city and how to find the judge in order to report the crime). It wasn't a new player.

I just want to clear up that out of the 4 punishments you've brought up, 2 of them punishments aren't in any way negotiable, because it's written right in the helpfiles which describe proxying and multiplaying that the minimum punishment is deletion. For example, in the case with proxying the listed rule is that the character has to be deleted: There's no leeway given there, so unless he's going to go against the very nature of the RM's position, he actually can't make an exception. The whole point of the RM was to make punishments consistent and clear to quiet the accusations of favoritism that were commonplace beforehand. If you have a problem with the listed required punishments for certain violations in the helpfiles being too harsh, it's wrong to place the blame all on Thuban for that, because he didn't write those rules by himself, if at all.

You mentioned before that my most recent deletion was suspect. Could you explain what you thought was suspect about it?