Shattered Kingdoms

Okay. Syn? Rip. That's a long list of crimes.
But let's talk about the multi playing Sorc.
You could have stated that the consequence is that they have to jloot themselves for the first offense. Let them know that it is a rule they should know.

I know that we're supposed to have read all the rules and know them like the back of our hands, but who really reads the ToS?
I feel that if there is a way to correct the behavior with a warning or a slight consequence, it should be done first.
Sure, people will abuse it. But I believe the community as a whole would benifit from a more "good cop" mentality vs the "bad cop" mentality.

Make it at least seem like you're here to help us. Because it seems as though right now you are against us. Does it feel that way to you?

I get the sense that you didn't read my post. He rolled his eyes and quit before I could even say one word. I would have been happy to hear his case and discuss the matter with him, but he wasn't interested. So he got the punishment that is clearly indicated in the rules.

i'm sure he rolled his eyes and quit cuz he was going to be deleted no matter he said, if the rulez were going to be enforced as written. what u guys should be asking urself is why a veteran player would intentionally and blatantly break that rule? there's only one reason - it's almost impossible to find a sorcerer to enchant for u lately due to the low counts.

maybe that should prompt the addition of NPCs that can enchant/consecrate for a fee, like has been requested at least a dozen times over the years.

I understand the need for rules and enforcement of them.

What I don't understand is the method of interpretation in regards to what makes a player ban-able. Reviewing the last strike in regards to banned players we have syn using a charm which shared the same adj of his character while he was using a spell to take on the charms appearance. Anjin charming and placing someone in a lamp. Yezis using the 'take' command banned (regardless of player outcry as to how take isnt twinkage) grep connecting through proxies to gather who list data.

Some definitely deserve punishment and for others it seems punishment is too harsh. I think the rules need to be spelled out a bit more, for example, what qualifies as a minor or major offense and how many are required for a ban ie 5 minors or 3 majors = ban. For now it seems the ban punishments are open to the interpretation of the staff and that might be the main worry of the common player and likely one of the reasons we are having this discussion about pk rules.

Regarding Syn, that happened before I was Rules Manager. Given that there is a true seeing spell, though, it makes sense to me that it was found to be an infraction. For the record, I would rule the same way.

As for the bans you listed, help punishment states that a repeat offender will warrant a harsher response. After a certain point, it becomes a major waste of staff time and resources to have to patrol a player that cheats over and over, and it exposes non-cheating players to them repeatedly, so it makes sense to tell them their next infraction, whatever it is, is their last; they at least have the option to play clean after that. You may forget sometimes that this is a hobby for staff members, too, and nobody wants to sit around observing and punishing some guy who cheats at the game over and over. That's super non-fun, definitely not what any immortal signed up for, and a guaranteed way to increase the staff burnout rate. We're here to build and have fun; Rules Manager is the job nobody wants but somebody has to do. As for the common player, I don't think he or she has to worry at all about this, because most players have no infractions and probably never will have any.

One point I would like to make is that if people would stop cheating, punishments would go way down. Most of the deletions and bans have involved the rules with harsher punishments, like 5, 6, and 7. Rule 1 violations, which aren't always cheating per se, rarely result in a deletion or ban unless they happen in conjunction with other violations. It's extremely easy to not cheat at Shattered Kingdoms, but maybe it is too much to hope that I don't ever have to bust another player for low-rent multiplay on their 1st level character or botting.

Back when I was playing Chronis, I was in the middle of Pvp near Kytar. I ran into the "imperial only" zone to buff up. Got blind from mistletoe and had to ride it out. I got in trouble for cheating. My mentor flag was removed and there might have been a slight level curse. I feel as though the punishment was just. But I feel as though now days my character would have been deleted for bug abuse.
I support the way this cheating scenario was handled. But we are in a different day and age now.

Also thuban, I did read your post. The sorceror was just used as an example on how i believe punishment should be handled. I see that he deleted the character.

In a game that's always had so much grey area and has always relied on players to make it interesting, I think everyone is just sick of the black and white approach lately. I doubt that anybody who has received a major punishment lately had the intent of sabotaging the game, making it less fun for other people, or doing anything that generally decreased the quality of the game itself. It keeps coming back to intent. A player gained an advantage by enchanting for his own character. Yes, that's an obvious rules violation, but who cares, really? I wouldn't do that, myself, but I would never want the game to lose a player and have to suffer yet another banhammer fallout discussion that apparently can only lead to the standoff that we keep having. It seems like the player base is trying to play a RP/PK mud, and Thuban is trying to play his own game regarding rules enforcement. I mean you have decades of playing experience complaining about how things are being handled and the staff position is rock solid that everyone is just wrong? Who is benefiting from any of this? Also, if the check and balance system for players is in the lap of one single person, who's checking that person? You can, of course, argue that every punishment for every violation that's happened is legit by the letter of the law, but how is this trend helping the game as a whole? Take Syn for example. Was I ever under the impression that Syn followed the rules to a T? No. Was I often on the [REDACTED] end of Syn's antics and forced to play the game harder due to someone dictating my play? Yes. But if I really wanted to avoid Syn's character and play the game in a manner where Syn just had absolutely no impact on my character I could, easily, no matter how many rules were being broken. Now my play is being dictated by someone my character can't just man up and go deal with if I want to. I'm not saying I want to cheat. I'm just saying it doesn't feel like I even know what is going to be viewed as cheating and what isn't half the time. Because my intent is never to ruin the game for someone else I don't ever feel like I'm cheating.(my admitted botting of my first char back in like 5 years because I was lazy aside) In all of the recent arguments between the players and the staff(Thuban specifically), it seems like it always comes back to "don't cheat and it'll all be fine." Well, how about you let the players enforce the rules themselves for the most part, like they have for years? Anybody can make a log of another player doing something illegal and submit it if they feel the need to. Something can always be reported and looked into. Rules Manager should be a position that is responsible to the player base to keep the game fun. How many of the recent penalties have been brought to the attention of the staff vs the staff just enforcing them on the players? The players are responsible to each other in respect to the rules, because each other is what makes the game interesting. We shouldn't be accountable to a Rules Manager, especially when that person has the ability to interpret and dictate how, or even IF, we get to play the game. If someone breaks a rule, they aren't doing it to carry out a vendetta against the Rules Manager, and the person with that job can't act like every rules violation is someone slapping his mother.

If you wanted to, you could call a penalty in just about every single play in football but they don't, because that isn't fun for anybody. Referees in any sport are governed by the sport itself, the players, and the fans...not the black and white letter of the law. Did Michael Jordan push off on a few game winning shots? Yep. Does anyone wish he didn't? Maybe the guy who got pushed, and likely only for a little while. Even that's a maybe, because the game itself grew from it and that player likely profited from it in the long term because the GAME grew from it.

It's not always great for me to chime in here, but I do anyway.

Player X uses his sorc to enchant for his merc. That’s “an obvious rules violation, but who cares, really?”
You may be right. Surely none of Player X’s buddies will really care. His playstyle may dictate whether or not any of his enemies care. It may be that multiplaying is relatively harmless in this situation. Hell, I might not even care.
But what you create is a precedent. If you let Player X get by with cheating in this instance, then you’ve created a very messy playing field, so that when Player Y gets caught cheating in a more serious infraction of multi-play, now you have an argument with precedent that is geared toward overlooking this infraction, too. Or you have the makings of a “favoritism” complaint, arguing that the staff “likes” Player X better, and therefore let him get away with cheating, and arguing that the staff “dislikes” Player Y, and therefore that is why he got punished when Player X didn’t.


Player Z perhaps doesn’t follow the rules to a T.
Maybe you know how to avoid becoming Player Z’s target. But that doesn’t mean the playerbase as a whole knows how to avoid a Player Z who is choosing to target & grief other players. And if Player Z is using OOC media to threaten and harass other players, then comes into the game and uses his characters to harass those players, then you have a problem. Yes, Player Z might have helped other newbies and other newb-vets to learn some tactics or to learn about EQ better. But it does NOT give Player Z the free license to engage in harassment. Especially if Player Z has already had one ban forgiven in order to give him a second chance to participate. Especially if Player Z has already been given countless warnings. I understand that some people might be sad for Player Z to be banned (again) from the game, but personally I wonder why those people don’t care equally about the players whom Player Z drove away from the game, or the staff resources that Player Z has wasted to prevent the staff from engaging in other activities.


Complaining about rules isn’t really anything new. Before we created the position of Rules Manager, there was plenty of complaining about other players breaking rules and doing various cheating behaviors. This position didn’t appear in a vacuum, but actually appeared in response to player complaints about other players breaking ALL KINDS of game rules. I don’t understand why some people seem to think that the victims of cheaters are the ones who should just grin and bear it. Particularly in the case of vets, whoever breaks the rules is the one who should eat the punishment that they should be expecting. Anybody who quits the game because they weren’t afforded the opportunity to break the rules in order to get a leg up on other players isn’t the type of player that I would want to encourage anyway.


I don’t envy the Rules Manager. If it were left to me, I’d quit within a week. If we think that the rules are too strict, then it’s reasonable to reconsider them. But I don’t think we should ever assume that the rules just shouldn’t be followed, or that they should be allowed to bend for players who are more popular or who are perceived as being skilled players.

Unless this is off-topic, it looks like you're saying that cheating is acceptable if it makes the game easier. That's a flawed line of reasoning, akin to saying that people who don't cheat deserve to be at a disadvantage.

Last I checked, no one ever "needs" enchanting to reach GM, let alone at level 1.