Forgotten Tales

Ok.

About 9 montha ago: We trapped a player on a clan map, which is deemed fair warfare.. He was released by GM. Recently, however, when this happened to another player, in fairness, GM didn't intervene.

Throughout the months, we've reported players for autoclicker, players I know use it because i've had 2 of them tell me how to get and use it, and one of them I caught admitting it when I was accidentally added to their group vhat. No punishment. Someone used my account and used autoclicker, GM sorts it.

Spamming.. Sure, we all get punished for that one regularly, but guess what?! It now holds a double standard! When we did it close to our clan, we were punished.. Another clan did it close to theirs.. It was deemed ok by the GM due to it being close.

A certain clan has accounts with skills an ex-GM
used his GM powers to make much higher than they should have been. I know he reported the accounts and they have likely been jailed now, but for a very long time they were still using those accounts.

That's some of the things.

Tommy wrote:Ok.

About 9 montha ago: We trapped a player on a clan map, which is deemed fair warfare.. He was released by GM. Recently, however, when this happened to another player, in fairness, GM didn't intervene.

Throughout the months, we've reported players for autoclicker, players I know use it because i've had 2 of them tell me how to get and use it, and one of them I caught admitting it when I was accidentally added to their group vhat. No punishment. Someone used my account and used autoclicker, GM sorts it.

Spamming.. Sure, we all get punished for that one regularly, but guess what?! It now holds a double standard! When we did it close to our clan, we were punished.. Another clan did it close to theirs.. It was deemed ok by the GM due to it being close.

A certain clan has accounts with skills an ex-GM
used his GM powers to make much higher than they should have been. I know he reported the accounts and they have likely been jailed now, but for a very long time they were still using those accounts.

That's some of the things.

Alright, this goes along with my previous post about change.
Like everything, the rules can and do change.
Not only how they're written, but how we interpret them.

9 months ago versus today - that's easy - the interpretation changed. With clan stuff, all rules are tricky, and we try to be very careful about it. We try to forsee all possible future outcomes and variations.... but, we'll admit, we're not perfect. Here's an example:
At one time, if you traded or shared an account, that account was jailed. That is no longer the case.
But, those that were jailed at the time, are not released. Why? Because, at the time, the rules were different.
More info about that one, I posted in another topic. If you're interested, I'm sure I can find it.

Autoclicker - this one is very tough. This is a cardinal rule - if you're caught, we will throw the book at you.
But proving it can be difficult, since the code was changed quite some time ago. For quite some time this was kept secret... but obviously, some realize it's not such a secret....
Add to that, 90% of accusations are false. So many players are quick to accuse cheating, just because they died in PvP. Of course, stats, level, and user experience do not matter in such cases (or so they believe).
I have been pushing - for months - for a coding option to be done on this. I still haven't heard anything on it. But, I'm only one voice. The players who complain about this the most, simply refuse to get on the forum and cast their vote. I can't help it, if they won't help me help them in this issue.
But when the change is implemented - there will be no warning. We will likely watch a while... and then, jail all offending accounts. Mass jailings if necessary. So I don't suggest anyone use such a program.

Spamming - this was originally considered a variation of rule 9 abuse. Now, it's becoming its own rule - it's posted, see for yourself. It's not set in stone - it's been debated over constantly - and it changes each time a unique-and-unthought-of-scenario comes up. No rule is perfect when it is first written - if it is, then it's a simple one. However, in a world where players come from all walks of life, no rule is so simple.

As for your last point - boosted account - I'll say a couple things.

In the past, there have been a few cases of rogue GMs - those who would take matters into their own hands, and abuse their powers.
As soon as the team is made aware, the GM is booted from the team, severely punished, and as much damage as they've done as possible will be undone.
But.... that's not perfect. Some things can get missed. I'm talking about going through TENS OF THOUSANDS of lines of logs.... and, logs may not hold everything either....

We do the best we can.
As for the account I think you're referring to... it's in jail currently, and logs are being checked.
If the owner reads this - I suggest you get in touch with the GM handling the case - or you will regret it later.

The fact that the account went for so long without detection is sad. We're working on our end to try and prevent that again.
As for players, I'm curious... why was this account not reported sooner? Well.... that's ok, we have rules covering that, and perhaps, players may be punished for this as well.

In honesty, I find it hard to be angry when you explain it all as you do, but then I just look back at said events and can't help but still feel the same as I did when I initially made this thread.

It's all well and good saying that you catch some you miss some etc but y'know.. It's not really enough when others get punished for it.

For instance... We reported a level 3600 mage for autoclicker when I was level 8765, because there was me (8765), Maiden (6500+) and Kalou (10,000) all attacking him at the same time with nothing to block any damage ans yet we couldn't even make him yellow. Nothing came of it, and that was the player who I saw boasting about it in the chat I was accidentally added to.

Tommy wrote:In honesty, I find it hard to be angry when you explain it all as you do, but then I just look back at said events and can't help but still feel the same as I did when I initially made this thread.

It's all well and good saying that you catch some you miss some etc but y'know.. It's not really enough when others get punished for it.

For instance... We reported a level 3600 mage for autoclicker when I was level 8765, because there was me (8765), Maiden (6500+) and Kalou (10,000) all attacking him at the same time with nothing to block any damage ans yet we couldn't even make him yellow. Nothing came of it, and that was the player who I saw boasting about it in the chat I was accidentally added to.

Tommy - let me level with you.
Nothing frustrates me more, than when I know of a cheater and I can do nothing about it.
But, in my line of work, I need proof; I have to be 100% sure...
This frustrates me to no ****ing end, and I've quit the game over it more than once.[Completely agree with this - as do probably all GMs - and even non-GMs] (DaHobbit)

...but I still come back.
Why?
Because, how does my leaving improve it?
It doesn't - it makes it worse.
I'm here for the players - not for pay, not for the creator, not for self gain. I try to help as much as I can.
This should be evident - just go back and read my 1700+ posts - and the deleted ones if you could - this is the way I've always been.

Can I fix everything? No.
Can I catch every rule-breaker? No.

But I do my best - same is said for all GMs - and at least at the end of the day, we made the game a little bit better I think.

As for fundamental changes in the game, bug fixes, content, or anything else that comes from programming - there's not much we can do.
YES - we tell compbatant. YES - we bring it up over and over again.
But, compbatant is quite busy - and he is the boss. We can't tell him what to do.

The only thing I can think of - is somehow, we need to convince him that this IS important, and it NEEDS FIXING SOON.
This goes for anything that only he can do.
And the only way I can think of, to convince him of this, is if every single player got on here and posted.
Will that work? I really don't know... but what we're doing now is not working fast enough for some.

I say what I think regardless of what people think of me for it, always have, always will. I say things that are true, I do not lie, so sometimes I make people happy, sometimes I upset them, and sometimes I am proven wrong.

I feel like this is one of the times I am proven wrong.

I was angry because of the way it seemed to me at the time, however I do still believe that the GM I spoke to about a certain incident about spamming made the wrong decision, and I will hold to that because as far as I am concerned, during that time, double standards were met.

MadMikael, It is always a pleasure to speak to you, and thank you and the other GM's for your hard work.

Tommy wrote:I say what I think regardless of what people think of me for it, always have, always will. I say things that are true, I do not lie, so sometimes I make people happy, sometimes I upset them, and sometimes I am proven wrong.

I feel like this is one of the times I am proven wrong.

I was angry because of the way it seemed to me at the time, however I do still believe that the GM I spoke to about a certain incident about spamming made the wrong decision, and I will hold to that because as far as I am concerned, during that time, double standards were met.

MadMikael, It is always a pleasure to speak to you, and thank you and the other GM's for your hard work.

It takes a lot to admit when oneself is mistaken or wrong.
I applaud you for this, and I'll follow suit.

GMs do make mistakes. We're not perfect. We do the best we can with the information and tools we have available.
But ultimately - we're human, and we get lied to all the time by players with an agenda.
Mutes are easy to make decisions on, but most other decisions are not so clear cut.
The GM making the decision has to balance time into the equation as well; if it can wait, we'll take a team vote. If not, we have to decide on the spot, with what we have in front of us.

Just yesterday.
I jailed an account for a rule 13 violation - grinding afk with pets.
This was based on a report from a trusted source who witnessed him killing mobs.
I went there, and the player was clearly afk... but there were no mobs.
I had urgent issues pending, so I threw him in jail, as I thought I had enough evidence to jail him on.
He spent several hours in jail.

However, later on, I reviewed my information to complete my reports.
I found some discrepancies - and I had gotten the names wrong.
The player I jailed was not the one reported.
I spoke with the player at length about the rules, and gave some strong warnings.
But, I told him, this would not count as an offence, and he would be released.

I regret it happening, but he was good about it.
Hopefully, next time he'll log off like I suggest.