Apologizes to the server

[Avalon_Fates]

Actually Aries if you remember got hacked and was forced to start from scratch twice already, anyone who thinks he would just Start Again on heRO for the third time is a bit daft.

Also why should vets get more attention and a slightly lower punishment. They've been here forever, if someone in your family screws up and does something bad do you immediately crucify them or do you punish them and watch them closely.

Sure, if the person in question wasted his second chance sure castrate them, but for the people who have spent large amounts of time here they do deserve a second chance if the crime isn't that horrible.

*Mah idiot little sister knows its bad to swear at the family and say bad things. But if someone bet her 10$ to do it and she did are we gonna put her up for adoption and kick her out of the house? or ground her for a month and hope she learns her lesson*

[Shaelyn]

Pandora, may I borrow your box???~evil grin~

Avalon_Fates Wrote:Actually Aries if you remember got hacked and was forced to start from scratch twice already, anyone who thinks he would just Start Again on heRO for the third time is a bit daft.

Aries Wrote:Just know if i had the chance to take it back i would and from this point on i will be more respectful to this Sever.?????????????????????? Thank you for listening

Aries' original post points to the opposite.

as a side, you'd be surprised.??this game is more than "just a game," it's a community.??once people make a home on a server, it's hard to leave - I'm finding that out more and more every day, in regards to my old server.

so it really depends on Aries, and how he feels about this community.??is he going to see it as "I screwed up and I'm getting a second chance zOMG I'm not going to screw this up this time" or is he just going to see it as "there's nothing left for me here."??by his apology and the responses here, I don't think he'd see it as the latter - it's obvious enough people care about him...and if he really didn't care about the server at least on some level and wasn't going to try, he wouldn't have bothered apologizing.

my 2?...??sorry for butting in.??I probably don't know enough about anything else going on here to comment, so I'll stay out of this otherwise (or try to anyway).

EDIT:??y'know, I also find it interesting that the person that the punishment affects isn't speaking out about unfair it is.??if it's so bad that he wouldn't want to come back as many people here are claiming, why isn't he complaining?

~laughs~ and I'm totally failing at trying to stay out of it. ah, it's what drama queens do best.

[GM-Ayu]

Avalon_Fates Wrote:Actually Aries if you remember got hacked and was forced to start from scratch twice already, anyone who thinks he would just Start Again on heRO for the third time is a bit daft.

Also why should vets get more attention and a slightly lower punishment.??They've been here forever, if someone in your family screws up and does something bad do you immediately crucify them or do you punish them and watch them closely.??

Sure, if the person in question wasted his second chance sure castrate them, but for the people who have spent large amounts of time here they do deserve a second chance if the crime isn't that horrible.

*Mah idiot little sister knows its bad to swear at the family and say bad things. But if someone bet her 10$ to do it and she did are we gonna put her up for adoption and kick her out of the house? or ground her for a month and hope she learns her lesson*

This makes no sense at all.

If old players deserve "penalty cushion" because they stayed here for a long time, are players honestly expecting to think that it's possible to "well I earned 6 months of credit now, I'll just bot a bit here as I already pitched in a lot of effort and I deserve the free help now. If they found me oh well just a jail"?

Old players are far more knowledgeable about server expectations and rules. They ought to live by example to other new players of what to do and what not to do. They are well informed. I don't see any reason why we give older players the lax because they are veterans of a server. Don't expect the same mistake that GMs made in the past. It's EXACTLY THIS REASON why some previous major offenders didn't get their just punishment enough. We weren't decisive enough, afraid of dramas due to the popularity of these "veteran players" among the server player base, and keep "hope that they get better and improve next time."

Nothing gives you special privileges to escape a server rules. Oh yeah, should I get some free OCAs and @item myself some stuff since I'm an old player, and I use my own time to GM and monitor the server instead of item hunting like everyone else that I now 'deserve' to sneak a 'little' away from the rules? No, we call that corruption. GM legits, veterans, and donators alike are subjected to the same set of standards.

I'm not too sure how your analogies even correlates to the problem at hand, but I'll play along:

If you want to have kids, you know what, don't can yourself hard in the first place? Don't smash yourself in the nuts with a sledgehammer, then proceed to blame the surgeons for "not helping" if they see it as irreversible damage and needs the castration.

We didn't send your sister off for adoption. We just took some expensive toys away. Still part of the family, but "no Wii for you."


EDIT: Actually Shaelyn I believe that Aries did, just not on the forums.

[Shaelyn]

GM-Ayu Wrote:EDIT: Actually Shaelyn I believe that Aries did, just not on the forums.

if that's the case, was it to a GM, or just his friends?

I kind of have the mindset that, if he feels wronged here and wants a change, he should be the one to start it by himself - not send his friends out to do so, if he did...and if he didn't, then no one else should even be involved.??it's up to the GMs to decide what punishment to dispense, not everyone else.??it's up the the person being punished how to handle the punishment, not everyone else.

regardless, his actions speak otherwise of what everyone else is trying to claim.??the GMs did NOT kick him out here, and his actions show that he believes he's not condemned as well.
that some of the former players on my other server would be so lucky...

at any rate, what I see is a dramafest on the forums that was completely pointless from the start.??and the pointlessness should be further obvious by the fact that the GMs aren't backing down, and from what I've read have no intent to.??some valid points were brought up on both sides, but now it's just getting silly...and...dramatic.??it's obvious where the GMs stand, it's obvious where this part of the playerbase stands, you guys are going to get to the point of regurgitating information very soon and snowballing until you have a flamewar.

everyone has a right to their own opinions, sure.??but nothing productive will come out of this.

my...??4? now.

~closes box~ am I too late???O.O

[Ryu Van Burace]

Well I draftd this at work so some of it is pretty much reitereating what Ayu said during the time I was offline:

Avalon Wrote:Actually Aries if you remember got hacked and was forced to start from scratch twice already, anyone who thinks he would just Start Again on heRO for the third time is a bit daft.

Like I said, I didn't know Aries so, no, I don't know anything about that.

Avalon Wrote:Also why should vets get more attention and a slightly lower punishment. They've been here forever, if someone in your family screws up and does something bad do you immediately crucify them or do you punish them and watch them closely.

This sounds contradictory. In addition, veteran players should know even better than new ones.

Avalon Wrote:Sure, if the person in question wasted his second chance sure castrate them, but for the people who have spent large amounts of time here they do deserve a second chance if the crime isn't that horrible.

See previous point.

Avalon Wrote:*Mah idiot little sister knows its bad to swear at the family and say bad things. But if someone bet her 10$ to do it and she did are we gonna put her up for adoption and kick her out of the house? or ground her for a month and hope she learns her lesson*

Depends, which did your parents tell her would happen if she did it?

Aries is (I can only guess) not 10. He knew what would happen. It's pretty clear. The things that he got paid to say just disgusted me.

So here's a cogent paradigm for you:
It was like being hired for that bank job by The Joker. You knew he was whacked, you went in because of the money and now you're dead.

[teOx]

"What he did: Insult GM on Main, purposely broke rules (accepting bribes)"

-accepting bribe is not against any rule
-since when is insulting someone an account bannable? especially when its not a repeated offender (didnt check but it doesnt matter since im sure not all of them were repeated offenders). show us the precedents for that. how is that not vindictive and how is that professional?

no one is asking for a precedent to let aries slip. we simply all think the severity of the punishment is unfitting the crime. there is no other reason any accusations of vindiction would be made. how long does it take to make a character and gear him the way aries was? for a new player thats many months of work. account bans shouldnt be thrown around for stupid stuff like one time insults.

only the GMs know if there was any personal feeling behind it. you threw away a kids months of hard work. if the ban was influenced by anger, you should be ashamed.

thats only if

[Kadar]

GM-Ayu Wrote:Warning: Incoming Wall of Text

Kadar Wrote:

GM-Pandora Wrote:If you do something bad, even if someone else told you to do it (bribe or not), it's still your responsibility.

Yes it is your responsibility but that doesn't mean that others are not ALSO at fault or to blame.??Does this mean that if I give someone a suggestion to break the rules and they do it I'm free and clear so long as I didn't bribe them?

No, both people in this scenario will be held responsible. In this case, the manipulator (Amil Gaul) was given full ban, while those who are bribed by him are given only account ban. Most arguments in this thread are made as if Aries took a harsher punishment than everyone else. Perhaps it seems this way because his account contain a character that's the highest level compare to everyone else, but if you look at the action carried out, he received an account ban similar to everyone else that got bribed.

We all know that Amil got the harshest punishment (as he deserved).??What I'm saying is that Aries punishment seems much too harsh for what he did.??Just because he was manipulated into doing it doesn't mean he should get a free ride out of it.??He should be punished for what he actually did or maybe a slight bit less because he was pressured into it.??The punishment he actually got was 'technically' not as bad but for all intents and purposes it WAS just as bad as what Amil got.??(This goes for the other two as well)

GM-Ayu Wrote:

Kadar Wrote:

GM-Pandora Wrote:Sure the responsibility is partly Amil's and he got all his accounts + IP ban + not allowed back treatment for it, while aries, death note and the other one who's name I forget got 1 account banned each.

So while Amil was kicked off the server outright, Aries was told that he CAN STAY if he really really wants to but you don't want him around.??If you're going to start over on a server you might as well do it on one where the GMs aren't watching to see if you slip up again so they can ban you for good.??You didn't honestly give him that punishment expecting him to play here anymore did you?

I fail to understand why the concept of account banning is treated as to allow a player to stay on a server with strings attached. If GMs are to be obnoxious and waiting for every excuse to pick on a player to leave, then GMs can easily do it be it an account ban, mute+jail or whatever the first punishment is. So first of all, I don' see how the particular punishment we picked have any correlation to setting up a trap for him to come back just to "ban him completely next time."

What the GMs did to Jason (and Silv for that matter) was letting them stay on the server with strings attached.??As Admiral Ackbar so perfectly put it, "It's a TRAP!"??Regardless of if you said it or not Aries would be put in that same category wouldn't he???That's how the GM team worked in the past at least.??It's stupid and silly but it's how things were run.??Are you now saying that if Aries did something minor he would only be punished for that minor incident and it would not be compounded because of previous infractions???If that IS in fact the case then bravo to the GM team for cleaning up their act.??I guess we'll have to wait until the next bowl of drama.

GM-Ayu Wrote:

Kadar Wrote:Look at all of the terrible things Jason did:

All of those disrespectful and hateful comments toward players and Jason still got to keep his characters if he apologized and waited.??He obviously wouldn't do that because for all intents and purposes you would be out to get him from then on.??Just like Aries probably wouldn't come back under the same circumstances.??The fact remains though that you pretty much forced Aries to leave.

From the looks of what transpired you were sick of people being disrespectful and wanted to crackdown with a sentence more harsh than usual.

I actually think that your quote on what happened to Jason half a year ago, compare to what happened in this case, is a sign of an improved ability in decision making for the GM team.

Jason's case was half a year ago. 2 of our GMs were not a GM. I was an intern where I mostly observed only. Half a year compare to the server's 3 year old is 1/6 of the server's life span. LOTS have changed, including the GM. I think that we all quoted on Jason's old punishment as most of us are rather dissatisfied with the poor ability on the GMs part on handling that ancient drama scenario. Hesitation to action along with being held threatened of drama outbreak because of a predicted unwelcoming punishment left everyone rather disappointed and upset against the GM. It was rather weak, and far too late. There are those who left because they find the GMs' ability to decision making to be poor and inexperienced, and those who stay didn't feel exactly happy either. Server took a huge 30% population cut.

And thus why, GM team has switched from an emphasis on particularism to universalism (may or may not appeal to all players, but I think that overall the pros outweigh the cons of this change.) GM team is more organized now in establishing records of all players when it comes to punishment, so we can easily refer to similar old cases in order to be consistent. Some rules are changed and updated (sadly at the cost of the phonebook of rules expanding even more most of the time). These changes obviously include the magnitude of punishment as well.

What judgment was like half a year ago, won't be the same now after april and may GM-Aki and GM-Pandora did a major administrative cleanup. Remember the time when half a year ago, a password change in heRO will take a super sluggish 2-3 months to finally get it done. Improvement to administration, because of GMing experience with new blood into the GM team to give senior GMs a hand, changed to be as quick as a week for password changes latest, and now control panel is back for immediate changes without GM interferences. Half a year ago I'm only an intern and was inconsistent in ruling (too strict/lax), constantly flip-flopped, and even had a period of time where GM-Loki took over my duties because of the inadequate level of performance from me. However, I'm quite confident to say that I'm a much more experienced GM now than before. Citing Jason's old case to use as comparison how the punishment against Aries is rather moot. Times have long changed from back then.

GMs are now much more determined to face unpopular yet necessary rulings, such as the case against recent 'well loved' player like Sthephio and Aries. Rather than giving leeway like with Jason in the past out of fear of drama and unpopularity, GMs give the proper and fitting punishment as soon as the event occurred (rather than dragging it on for months.)

I'm glad we get an honest look at the GM team.??If you can see the problem you can fix it.??Perhaps you will eventually become the GM team everyone gives you credit for.

GM-Ayu Wrote:It is less about who told Aries to do what he did, or who he said those comments to. The main points that led the vast majority of the GM teams (not GM-Pandora alone), myself included, are:

-He committed the crime while being fully knowledgeable that it is against server rules (chat log has Aries saying how it is wrong to do so in the beginning)
-He committed the crime under the context where the entire server voiced out their pleads, and thus reminded Aries, that he is committing a huge mistake (everyone on @main can testify that numerous people called for people to shun Amil Gaul and resist his deals)
-He attempted to hide his identity with a new character, showing full intention to do what he did (he created a new character for the sole mission to say what he said) with planning, trying to please both the manipulator and escape the punishment from the GMs as well

The general rule (with some exceptions, though this case isn't one of them) is that punishments are directly related to the crime as much as possible. Those who spam, is muted so they cannot talk anymore. Those who sacrificed other player's playing experience for their own entertainment, has their playing time in heRO limited by jailing, and so on.

Aries tried to get a head start caving in to Amil Gaul's bribes, (and Aries intentionally doing it on a new account to try to protect his own character safe while receiving full benefits as well). Therefore, we take his account so that his attempt to protect himself by hiding will fail, he is far set back than the supposed forward boost in heRO. This same punishment is carried out not unique to Aries but for everyone else within this scenario.

Those who spam are muted so he should be muted for spamming.??Those who ruin the playing experience of other players get jailed.??He said mean things on @main so those players had their playing experience lessened.??Fine jail him for that.??Those who try to avoid a lesser punishment recieve a much worse punishment.??Ok fine double the length of his punishments then.??Or ban all of his accounts FOR A DURATION so he can't play.??The punishment he got for trying to dodge the mute/jail would make him quit the server and I'm sure the GM team wasn't so naive as to think otherwise.

Was he really banned because he tried to dodge his punishment?
Did all three of the players who were bribed make new accounts to try and protect themselves or would you have banned them all regardless of if any of them tried to dodge the punishment or not?

GM-Ayu Wrote:On the contrary, I'll rather ask a question to the players instead of only defending our position when GMs are doubted:

Are we having doubts in a particular case because of *what* the GM's decisions are, or is it the*who* on the receiving end of the GM's decisions that's causing all the ruckus?

There are well constructed arguments of doubts and questioning to the GM's severity (like some of the posts in this thread, which we welcome) about the recent scenarios, and there's also wild accusation to me for a in-game PM that some players believed how this is the GM's own doing for not being active enough (and how we should've been online to stop Aries and somehow it's part of our responsibility...?). Everyone chose to defend the place of particular players, when there's other players who has the same magnitude of punishment, yet that's perfectly fine for those people? Very, very few people brought up the fact that Aries indeed apologized and therefore is worth reconsidering the punishment against him, if it should be lighter than everyone else (which we took into account already.)

Quote:In doing so [GMs] got [their] own feelings mixed up in it which comes across as vindictive and unprofessional.

Likewise, aren't a small part of the playerbase in 2 recent occurrences with 'famous players' mixed their own feelings, especially personal ties and friendshiop, in their logical analysis of GMs decisions and is insisting that the fault is on the GMs because of the 'who' that is involved? I ask that while GMs will try their best and be accountable to players by keeping out biased opinions/decisions, players will also judge the GMs with total fairness and impartiality. This relationship to look after each other works both ways. Players make suggestions and raise questions to keep GMs in check by requesting fairness in judgment, while GMs also need the players to be rid of biased emotional judgments to help in maintaining server rules and order.

If it were a player I didn't like or a player I didn't know I probably wouldn't take so much time making my posts.??I would still argue on their behalf because this 'case' is going to be used as a reference in the future when similar matters arise.??When that happens I want to make sure people think very clearly about the matter.

GM-Ayu Wrote:There are lessons to be learned for both sides. GMs understand that players worry more when GMs decide on irreversible punishment in case if GMs make a mistake, and will much more prefer a ceasing of playing priviledges regardless of time limit, even up to 2-3 months in some suggestions. Players also have to understand and accept that rules ought to be followed even when GMs are absent on the scene, and one looks out for another keeping each other accountable by reminding each other to respect the server rules to keep heRO server a great place to play on.

+1 above quote

[Général_Argos]

Kadar Wrote:I would still argue on their behalf because this 'case' is going to be used as a reference in the future when similar matters arise.??

WRONG! :D

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...rldMap.png

Your concept taken from the british common law doesn't apply here, since the server is in montreal and that it wasn't a criminal activity. ^_^


Issue Krimstyled, period

[teOx]

noob -_-

[GM-Pandora]

No one said that aries couldn't stay or that we didn't want him around nor anything about waiting for a future action to "get rid of him" or anything of the sort. I had, in fact, nothing against aries personally beforehand, I encountered him occasionally while playing and can't recall any problems between us, as for now I'd say I am quite displeased with his gross lack of judgment, but I do not harbor any particular hatred toward him.

Not all previous "account banned" people decided to leave, many stayed and worked hard to regain what they had lost as punishment. We do take previous offenses into account, but that doesn't mean it's a trap, real justice system works like that too, if the person learns from their mistake and behaves well they have nothing to fear.

My own feeling were in fact not mixed up, especially since the decision was taken by the rest of the team, since it was aimed directly at me I asked them to decide and then agreed on their sentence.

Perhaps we have been more leniant long ago, but we got reproached for it, by the same people who now reproach us of being too severe. We want to provide a good environment for the players, thus why we deal with rulebreakers who tarnish that environment for others.

@Ayu unrelated to this matter, but wth 30% cut? Hardly, we saw a small change in number and then the server continued to grow afterwards.

In this particular case I'm the one who told aries to make an apology, when he asked "what he could do", thus making the "but he apologized" point a little moot since it didn't completely come from him, although he did show desire to rectify things. Unfortunately an apology doesn't erase an offense.

As for the "hack" on Aries' account, proper checks were made, and no external IP accessed his account, so whatever happened to his item/exp was done by someone in house either if he left his ro window unattended or if sibling/friend at this house had his info, thus it does not fall into the category of hack. We repeatedly asked information about items of significance so we could track where they went but never got an answer.

I actually contacted Aries a few days ago about these recent events wanting to talk to him about it, but my message went unanswered, if he or the other 2 banned people in the same case have something to say they can let it be known, our pm box and support ticket are opened, but for now that's enough for everyone unrelated to the case. Thanks everyone for your input, be assured that we did read all feedback thoroughly.