Shattered Kingdoms

I think that a ruthless vet is beneficial to he game. I’ve had 2 bad run-ins with Finney. One while
He played Orsiphatis and Chronis helped Ainhoa after she was kicked from the Harlies. I got PK’d into the dirt, but it was all warranted. I had to make difficult decisions and ended up paying the consequence for them. Though I was bitter at the time, I still respected the storyline and the conflict they bred.
Thakathi betraying Azoreth and starting his campaign against the Empire and the Imms was incredibly well done. He posted notes on the boards about the people he would kill and the criteria that needed to be met to stay alive. He followed all the rules but people had soft skin.
It created incredible storyline that compels people to play. You don’t get that now days because only the vets are able to shape the mud to their will and create a story in game.
This is why we need vets.

Syn was playing Dakken when the splitbane and he went off the deep end. It was another case of a vet being ruthless, but RP surrounded the game.

I’d like o see vets come back, because it seems like a lot were banned because of griefing. Even though actions were justified.

None of the vets were banned for griefing, even. Some of them were given warnings for doing things like . . . winning PvP against enemy factions, though, which was really confusing. Finney and Thran were both given warnings, when the only difference between their behavior and their opponent's behavior was that they were winning PvP confrontations.

These same players who were given really strange warnings for doing things that were in no way against the rules were subsequently banned for doing things like reposting private messages from IMMs.

I kind of expect this post to get censored . . . but it just doesn't sit right with me for IMMs to post that the game's decline was from players cannibalizing each other, when ridiculous IMM decisions like punishing a guy for using the take command had more to do with it. There's an example of a really big punishment being handed out for "bug abuse" even though the entire player base argued emphatically that they never would have been able to guess that what he did was against the rules. Pretending that the vets who got banned were banned for "griefing" is revisionist history, also, and probably only exists to support the narrative that players did this to themselves.

Griefing is not "revisionist history", but an example of where I believe we could have served the players better long ago. Most of those players absolutely should have been banned for griefing, more than half a decade ago when they were doing so brazenly and openly. Perhaps, if they had been punished way back when they would have improved their behavior, and returned as much better players... it's possible at least. Instead, we set an expectation with those players that there would be no repercussions, serious or otherwise, for most of the deleterious behavior. For instance, one of the people now banned for other reasons liked to log out to avoid PvP if they were at the disadvantage, even if the opponent was in the room. Maybe if they had been significantly punished for that, they wouldn't have done any of the other stuff later?

Look no further than the level of discourse in these forums that continued a downward slide of abuse of each other until General Discussion couldn't even exist anymore. Yet, we still had players that had to get forum blocked because they couldn't resist antagonizing and abusing each other on the regular, often due to spill over from the game, but just as often only as an avenue to be nasty to another human being. You bemoan the loss of General Discussion, and I do too, but the GD removal was due to our collective behavior, and was answering that problem. People would often excuse this behavior by saying "well they are great players" when no matter how great the player, if someone is choosing to be awful human being, you don't really want them playing the game and setting that example.

We could discuss the specifics on ban methodology til we are blue in the face and likely still have vastly different views, but if you're going to sit there and tell me we, the player base, weren't absolutely awful to one another for generally spurious reasons, there is an entire forum full of evidence to the contrary. We sucked, we should have always done better, I wish we would have course corrected on all that much, much earlier. This is a "hard" game that requires a significant time investment, and doesn't exactly thrive on mobile devices. There are lots of games out there like that which continue to exist and grow, but usually what they have in common is a thriving and welcoming community. I think we're in agreement on that last line, if nothing else.

I can't look at General Discussion because it is not viewable.

I'm not pretending players weren't jerks to each other on the forums. Sometimes people were jerks in the game, too. I just reject the idea that this is was the main reason SK's player base has gotten smaller. I'm not buying it. It's like reason #4.

If we're in agreement that people were being pretty constant jerks to each other, it continued to exist even after GD was taken down, and we're seemingly even in agreement that it was a problem for us maintaining and gaining players, then the rest is kind of just extra words. If it is a number one answer for me, but in your family feud scoreboard it's a 4, it still is/was a real problem.

Something that is overlooked though is that this is a problem that impacts and makes any other problem that involves any interpersonal interaction much more severe. Every off-hand remark spent denigrating the game, the staff, and other players just further poisoned the well. At one point, I simply wanted people to share a bit about themselves to make the staff a bit more personable, in the misguided assumption that putting a personality to the staff slot would humanize and make people take a step back. Instead I got the joy of digging in and seeing every single shred of personal information ever offered up basically just used as a weapon later on, I couldn't blame anyone for being hesitant in sharing anything else. There used to be things like events where players and staff got together to hang out and [REDACTED] together, and then even that was turned into a way to further attack people.

You might have other issues that you rank higher, and I'm completely okay with that because there are always other issues, but I doubt any of them aren't at least impacted by the way everyone treated and continue to treat each other. Shattered Kingdoms isn't a game you can actually win, it's a co-operative RP environment with mechanics that allow for combat to be used as a method of conflict resolution and some measure of skill, but there are still to this day players who measure their success or failure on how much they ruined someone else's character plans. That sucks, and I don't have a good answer, but I know all the people denying there has ever been a problem are specifically hurting things, not helping.

I can speak for myself and say some punishments in the past may have been a bit much, but I also think a whole lot of infractions that should have been pursued in the past simply weren't at all for a multitude of different reasons. Neither excuses the other of course, but I think painting a picture of some kind of one-way street does a disservice to the entire conversation. In only my opinion, we absolutely went too easy on a lot of players due to their perceived value to the game, and the rabble rousing backlash punishing the obvious violation would incur. It's like telling a small child they aren't allowed to have cookies before dinner, and you keep catching them stealing cookies to eat, but do nothing as the cookie has already been eaten. When the small child continues to steal cookies due to the lack of punishment and spoils their dinner, and then they get severely punished for not finishing their dinner, whose fault is it? The child who was breaking the rules willingly? The parent who spared the rod, effectively encouraging the negative behavior? I'd say it's probably the parent's fault, but at the same time none of our players are children either, and shouldn't need to be treated as such.

To use a real-world example, there was an incident that looked like probable EQ off-loading. Upon investigation, every single player that was involved was relatively stand-up, everything seemed to check out, and while a questionable situation it didn't seem to be worthy of any kind of classic punishment. I basically just wanted to get rid of the equipment in question, as if it had been a junk loot instead of a full loot, because if there HAD been a junk loot it wouldn't have even been something brought to my attention. Anger, requests for much harsher punishments, etc. It wasn't about any kind of restorative justice, re-establishing a fair playing field. It was about retributive justice, punishing the people who had wronged them, and in their estimation the game. To this day, I'm not entirely sure I made the right decision, but I'm fine with the decision I made because I thought it was the best decision for the game, and one that would put the matter to rest as quickly as possible and let people get back to you know, having fun.

I don't want you to think I'm piling on you, or anything like that, I just think our relationships with each other inform our decision making more than any of us like to admit. I also think while some players are absolutely seen as "problem players" it's generally because they actually were a problem, and kept putting us in situations similar to the one I described. How many times can you tell a player who feels abused by another player for OOC reasons that they did enough RP, and to handle it in-character? What about when they still do enough RP, but it's two new characters that just happen to be in conflict again? It's nice when "problem players" are dumb enough to make their intentions completely clear by logging off one character to instagib someone on an alt, but the reality is it's rarely that cut and dry.

TLDR: If we were all better to each other to begin with, problem players would have never been a problem, rules enforcement actions would never have needed to take place, and input from players would have probably been better received when it came to other changes. Our poor attitudes and behaviors as a player base actively made most of the other things people point at as issues much, much worse.

Thanks for your open analysis of the current state of relations.

I’ll say this. Yes, some of the people that were banned did things to warrant punishment. But in a lot of cases, their behavior was reactive.
Take Opey for example. He did some killing of lowbies and possibly griefed some people. But from an RP stand point, if some peon is asked their name by a well-renown and respected soldier of the imperial army, and they are disrespected by this peon, then of corse they’re gong to strike them down. Does it suck for the lowbie? Sure. But they should have been kissing this man’s feet.
Opey did this maybe twice and saw a little bit of backlash for it. I can’t remember what his other punishable offenses were. But when he started getting imm-attacked for these IC/RP-justifiable actions, he begins to act out, leading to his other undeairable behaviors.

In years gone by, if someone would complain about him slaying lowbies like this, it would have been just considered part of the game. We’ve gotten too comfortable in coddling these people that don’t want to die. So many changes have been done to improve survivability. What happened to the days where someone would get killed and then they’d retaliate in the future. It all builds IC storyline. But it seems the new meta is if you get ganked, cry to an imm, the killed gets punished for griefing, and then the player no longer has to worry about getting killed.

We have been losing players here and there for quite a long time. But there is data out there that shows the playercount taking a dive bomb when Thuban was made RM and started banning people left and right.
Dojojo’s backdoor to Somnium or whatever it was? Or whomever “abused” the take command? These could have been instances where light punishment could have been used and the issue resolved through re-coding and educating the player base. Instead these players were banned for cheating/bug abuse. It should be the builders responsibility to remove these bugs so people can’t use them. Because I’m pretty sure the back door was implemented to be used the way he did it.

It’s all been about losing faith in our leaders. That is where the playerbase started to get discontent. If we don’t have people that are trying to help us and help the game, then why would we want to be in that community. And if we don’t value our place in the community, how can we punish others for the wrong-doings that have been done to us. That is why you see disruptive behavior. It was not born. It was bred.

I would rather go back to a time when rules were less-harshly enforced, and people got killed with minimal RP if it means that IC actions and storylines spawn from it.
It should have never turned into us vs them. But it has.

If the kid keeps stealing the cookies, don’t make anymore cookies. If someone is abusing the take command, code the game so it can’t be used. It’s not the kid’s fault that there are cookies right in front of their face. Cookings are Fahking delicious!!

To Baldric and Algorab:

I truly feel like everyone is stuck in the past rehashing and opening old wounds over and over and over.

There should be a time when we should start fresh rather than punishing the future for past mistakes. Our past is what chains us down and stops us from growing who we truly want to be as a community. Trust and respect goes both ways for IMMs and players alike.

In certain situations, its okay to be bitter and resentful because in the end we all dont want to be hurt again and that closes us off to many opportunities. I've seen the most toxic/horrible/cruelest people on SK over the years and I have yet to see people as cruel in my personal life. So I can understand why we want to lock this s*** down. Personally it taught me a lot about how cruel I can be, but I choose not to go there because I believe in giving people chances on a case-by-case basis. I can name numerous times where players were hurt personally and had the "you hurt me, so I'll kill you mentality" and dragged everyone into the dirt in SK.

The key thing is... the cruel people that merited the shutdown of the key components of the game are gone now. Do we still have to continue this behavior? (Rhetorical question for both player and IMM) The cruel people wins in the end because they changed the game/us and while they have left and moved on, it still impacts us all as loyal IMMs/players of the game. They have scarred us and we are truly screwed when we say "never again!". I could be wrong and IMMs are pointing a big finger at baldric (lol).

TLDR: Are we basically at a point where IMMs cant give an inch to players for fear of retribution? That sucks. Wish we could all treat other with respect as human beings. Sounds like the relationship is so damaged between players and IMMs that it is unrepairable (oh boy sounds like trying to talk to my ex lol).

None of this is very true though. Opey was finally cut ties with because despite being given multiple chances he still thought it was acceptable to break basically any rule once he was angry with something. The last straw was another completely blatant PK attack on a character he had an issue with on another character of his with zero RP. This wasn't the first time for this type of thing, he had already been banned previously for similar behavior. After a ton of chances, are we supposed to knowingly allow someone to abuse our other players willingly on the basis of Opey previously being a quality player? As the RM involved, I don't know that any player received more chances, or if I have ever been more disappointed in needing to ban someone. I know it might be difficult to imagine, but I probably wish it hadn't needed to happen more than anyone else other than Opey himself.

That said, the idea that people were allowed to slay lowbies back in the day is patently false. People often caught curses for it, and more than a few bans were put in place due to people making newbie griffons just to roll the newbie schools and things like that. I know of people who caught curses simply because they happened to die in a populated area and a NPC previously under their control went wild and ended up killing a newbie a bunch of times. Neither I, nor Thuban, were rules manager at the time, in fact I don't even know that the position existed at that point. Regardless, do you know how much uproar there was from people about punishments stemming from newbie killing? Very, very little. The player base was larger, and there were more people still playing the game that understood that abusing new players was a recipe for not having any. Even the "twink" crowd would usually frown on people doing blatantly wrong things like swapping characters to kill someone for no real reason.

As far as bug abuse punishments go, the smart thing to do is always report something working strangely to the staff. It only takes a few seconds to log an issue, and send up a small prayer about it. It's one thing to place the burden of responsibility on the builder, it's another altogether to basically approach the situation as some kind of Wild Wild West where everything is fine to abuse until told otherwise by staff. It's THAT mentality that makes it an us vs them situation because instead of us working together to make sure the game doesn't have unbalancing bugs, or cheat ways to complete quests or whatever, it becomes a game of who can find the best exploits. Speaking from experience, someone was kind enough to inform me of a bug in something I built that was being abused. I fixed it, tried my best to deal with the immediate fallout, and moved on. I'll be honest though, if I had just caught everyone involved abusing it willy nilly, I don't know that my response would have been as measured, nor do I know that it should have been. The person who actually let me know what was going on saved everyone, myself included, a whole lot of headache.

I completely agree that it's a collaborative game, and no one wants an us vs them mentality, but that means recognizing that the staff are people who are just volunteering our time to help make the game run smoothly as we can. I understand that the people playing are just trying to have a good time, I only ask that everyone actively try not to do so at the expense of other players and staff. That's basically all I really want from anyone. That means if you find some advantageous "bug" that seems out of step, let the staff know, not because it diminishes your fun, but because you can empathize that it wouldn't be fair or fun if everyone else had that advantage but you.

I really just want everyone to get along and have a good time. That's it. The rest is just extra descriptions.

Announced reboot. Dulrik, doubt you will read this or even care. Save all your stable improvements and bug-fixes, add 1 race, 1 class. Do an end-game event. Retire all characters and make them useable as ghosts only as if age-death. Everyone starts at zero, but please give 6 months (at least) notice.

By the time Opey ran out of chances, he already was fueled by distrust and what he felt was unfair judgement toward him. I’m not saying he shouldn’t be banned in the end. I’m trying to say that his behavior in the end was driven by how he was treated previously.
And my point is that I believe a lot of people with this disruptive behavior, leading to bans, follow a similar storyline. They were mistreated or unfairly judged with insufficient explanation, so they lashed out. I personally believe that the max ban should be (should have been... were too far gone at this point) a 5 year ban. That is enough time for a person to completely change.
I’ll also say that Opey’s offenses were not super extreme. He was a nucense, sure. But there wasn’t sexual harassment. He wasn’t oocly threatening people. He was just annoying from a rules point of view. Everyone was told “if you apologize and state that you’ve changed your ways, we’ll probably let you back.” Most people who have been banned have too much pride. They aren’t going to admit they were wrong because none of them really think they were wrong. (At least anyone that would consider apologizing)
But Opey was the bigger man. He sucked up his pride, which takes a lot and he should be commended for, and he wrote out a long message about how he was wrong and how he apologizes and how he’ll be a good contribution to the game. And he was denied. It doesn’t bode well for the imm trust. “Hey. Tell us we were right and all will be forgiven. Haha. Jk. Now you just told us we were right. Thanks.” That’s infuriating in a sense.


As for bug abuse... I have, in the past, sent a pray and said “I’m doing this. If this is a bug please PM me. If I receive no response, I will continue this behavior.” It’s gotten to the point where I have to word it like this because if I ask, I’ll never receive a response.
But a lot of times people don’t know they’re abusing a bug before they’re caught for cheating.
For example, I recently got murdered by a harlequin. A method that I’ve seen to prove that someone is actually who they say they are (insert cabal spell) is by removing a ring and wearing it again.
A (cabal spell) cannot remove equipment that they only “appear” to be wearing. It’s a method for protecting yourself against this spell. So is this a bug and am I going to get banned for it? Is this the same as demanding that someone walk up to a cabal HQ and say “enter?”
It’s a simple trick, but if I was a target in the Thuban Crusade, then I would bet money that I would get banned for this. Even though people have been doing this since the introduction of the cabal spell.

Also, I got PK’d by this harly 2 weeks ago. I never met the person. Never said a word to him. After I got jlooted I got a “your writ has been fulfilled.”
Sure, we had some post-Pk rp... “I’ll kill you for this.” “Many want you killed, Kyln” yada yada.
So I’m okay with the Pk on an ooc Level. But a lot of coddled players now days would cry for a curse. But this PK added storyline, like I’ve said. And people need to accept this is how the game works. And the imms need to support that as well.
Pre-pk or post-Pk RP is all that is needed. I didn’t get griefed. I got out-played.
Everyone needs to embrace the conflict. And the fact that conflict was punished, I feel, is what has brought this game to a grinding halt.

Sorry for the rant.