Shattered Kingdoms

There are maybe 30 players online max time. I'd give them a 2 month ban and let them recreate. If it were 5 years ago....it would be different.
Just IMHO

The fact that this bug was abused by people who stopped playing the game goes to show that the leveling changes of the last half a decade are actively keeping players away.

Punishing people who set out to avoid the most irritating part of this game will not really solve any problems. Look to the source of the problem, which is an increasingly silly and chore-like leveling system. This has been an exercise of arresting addicts while crack factories are allowed to multiply.

Also, who cares about a siteban? It's purely symbolic, everyone who was banned has the knowhow to connect to the mud through a different IP. Why even bother?

Additionally, I've noted a fair few "if you don't like it you can leave" comments from players, especially players who at one time or another have been given a break by others who could have driven them from the game. Do you really want fewer players in the game? If so, your master plan is proceeding rapidly.

It's still a deterrent, really. Yeah, it can be gotten around but those who don't want to flat thumb their noses at the staff will adhere to the spirit of the ban even if they could get away with going around it. I know one ban-ee in particular who will be sticking to it until given the ok to do otherwise for certain.

The staff is constantly overworked and undermanned. New awesome areas take a team of good builders. A team means more than a pair. If players were kinder to each other and to IMMs, maybe people would be more likely to remain a volunteer for the staff.

Well said.

If leveling wasn't ridiculous (Even with Bonanza) - bugs like this would never be abused.

That's entirely untrue. No matter how fast the leveling is, people will execute any abuse they can so long as doing so makes leveling faster. If we could all roll characters at GM level, then sure, no one would abuse something like this.

The benefit of cheating outweighs the cost. If this were changed, there would be a more ethical response from the pbase upon the discovery of bugs.

how many people need to gm chars in under 50 hours for noobs to stop complaining about lvling. Or you could just go play wow and spend a month and a half reaching 80.

There are lots of great ideas floating about, and lots of great quests, items and areas already written up that haven't made it into play. The problem isn't lack of interest. The problem is lack of promotion.