Players and game violations

A place for Immortals of the game to post changes in policy or other relevant announcements for the game.
Elysia
Posts: 7908
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2015 1:29 pm

Regarding the player of Cosmo.

Post by Elysia » Mon Nov 04, 2019 5:58 pm

All,

We have confiscated Cosmo's characters and jailed them, on the grounds of repeatedly harassing an immortal, revealing details about said (former) immortals' mortals and generally being toxic, spreading misinformation to cause malcontent. He has been keeping that up for over a year and enough is enough.

We are also 99% sure the player of Cosmo is in fact the same player who was behind Ahren, as there are a multitude of similarities between these two, which have been documented in the past 6-7 months. Some of these similarities have been independently noticed by several players, as well. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

Given the current age of cellphone connections and whatnot, we have not been able to ban the player. We can't do so without potentially banning current or future Australian players. While can site-ok current players, that would also mean new players from Australia would be unable to log on and play. The player of Cosmo will likely play again and upon discovery, those characters will be jailed, too.

We feel it's likely that he will lash out at immortals and potentially players who have irked him, so if you see that happen, please report it, so that we may take action.

WoTMUD Staff

Vampa
Posts: 496
Joined: Mon Jun 19, 2017 1:45 am

Players and game violations

Post by Vampa » Sat Jun 25, 2022 2:01 am

THE POLICY
We are sharing the outcomes of punishments for rule breaking in this thread, with the characters' names anonymized. In the very rare situations where we permanently ban a player, we will share their character names so you know why that person is missing and why they are unwelcome.

THE BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
In the past we did not share this information. It was considered private between the punished player and the game admins.

This was good in that it protected players' privacy when they made short-sighted mistakes; we will try to preserve as much of this as possible.

It was bad in that poor tracking and lack of transparency led to situations where as admins we weren't consistent in our responses, or where players felt game admins had not taken action (or strong enough action) in situations where they had been harassed/etc. These were eroding trust in admin fairness.

We felt like the bad was starting to outweigh the good, so we made this new policy that tries to preserve as much of the good as we can while minimizing the bad.

WAIT, BUT THIS IS NOT REALLY ANONYMOUS, YOU POINT OUT
That's 100% true. Any astute player who cares deeply enough or is morbidly curious enough can probably piece together the identity of someone who is punished based on the context. That's the tradeoff and we think the better transparency is worth that cost right now. The Houseguest Rule still applies in the context of not harassing other players for bad decisions they may have made in the past.

Feneon
Posts: 1748
Joined: Sat Dec 19, 2015 5:02 pm

Re: Players and game violations

Post by Feneon » Mon Jun 27, 2022 5:48 pm

Two players formed an organized method to game the system through routinely trading multiple pouches of potions from DF to DS where it was purchased and transferred back to LS where it sold through a broker and then purchased and sold to DS.

The gains are as follows:
26 altqps
98 qps and 50 pending awards.

One player will lose all of their altqps on that character as well as the opportunity to go darkfriend on that character in the future. They will also lose 234 ((26x3)3) qps on all other characters.

The player of Myzec will lose 592 (148x4) quest points on every character involved. Their characters that were not involved will lose 296 (148x2) quest points. Traditionally, punishments have been the qp gain times between 4 and 7 to the character involved.

The Wisdom involved also lost an additional 24 qps from triggering the reward mobol fast enough that there were double rewards, however, this is likely a bug and incidental. We will fix this elsewhere.

Both players will have all of their characters jailed and will be welcome to come back after Christmas if they chose to return and play the game for what it is: a game meant to be fun and not meant to be cheated.

Where this came from:

We randomly did an audit of the broker systems last week because we wanted to see if potions were being flushed out, if there were issues on DS getting them, and what we wanted to do about it related to the day. We saw a fair amount of issues that sparked further investigation and have spent collectively more than a day of time trying to uncover what took place and what to do about it.

We pulled a sample of 9 days from that time and the gains are listed above.

The DS broker was introduced as a means to give value to DS and was never meant to be a way to create a cycle between characters to exchange objects for quest points.

We did our responsibility to ensure that it was a punishment relative to the gains and believe that the additional punishments will demonstrate to all that we will no longer limit punishments from abuse to characters, we will apply it to players. Both players, however, who see these purchases and sales as not acts of collusion, but more likely that these happened by chance and are not connected.

Our rules state this:

You get one appeal to a higher immortal. There is no appeal from an Implementor.

You should keep in mind this: the technical rules that are outlined on the boards do not equate to the only rules on this game. While we try to actively keep those rules clear, above all, you should consider that loopholes are exterior to rules.

What will change in game:

Since the introduction of DS brokers we've had an increase in the amount of general tomfoolery that has increased the requirements for immortals to check and monitor the exchanges.

There are also occasional bugs that populate posters with names that players report or don't and make assumptions about.

The 250 altqps that can be gained through the broker is a process that will be removed. We will be replacing this with an RP focus for character development.

We will flesh this out, but immediately the DS brokers have been removed. The materials on them will be paid out by immortals.

Feneon
Posts: 1748
Joined: Sat Dec 19, 2015 5:02 pm

Re: Players and game violations

Post by Feneon » Fri Jul 01, 2022 6:44 pm

An audit was conducted with a focus on recent activity between 6/12 and 6/22 due to general anomalies on potion brokers between LS and DS. Below are key data points that were considered;

During the period listed Tasneem had 34 broker transactions, 26 of which were purchased by Bragar.
Tasneem also has 15 remaining unsold pouches for a total of 49 transactions during this time period.
This is approximately 220 singular potions and a total time logged in of 29 minutes.
Myzec on alts collectively purchased 59 pouches through the DF broker during this time period.
Of Bragar's 26 potions sold listed, 20 were purchased by the other player listed.
Bragar was actively logged into the game during the period, but only had broker usage on days Tasneem sold, immediately after broker use. Bragar and Tasneem logged times overlap for the period.

Myzec's alts at 59 purchases were the most by any player. The next 3 highest players during the period were 11,10,10 respectively.
Tasneems 34 broker transactions were the most by any player. The next 3 highest players during the period were 10,6,4 respectively.

This pattern of abuse expended back beyond the period listed through the Wisdom and trolloc characters.

Tasneem's last use of the deft herbalist was Jan 24, 2022.

From Feb 1 to present Tasneem has 134 completed broker transactions and 15 pending, 149 total transactions and over 500 singular potions.
Player total logged time during this period is 172 minutes.

While there are not explicit rules against:

1) cycling potions from one player to another through award systems to gain repeated rewards on the same objects
2) transfering potions from systemic looting of DS broker for QP gains on a Wisdom

We feel that these violations, on face value, are obviously violations and are against the spirit of the implementation of the system (and game).

However, from feedback from both players who have been punished, these punishments sound like: "we do not want you to play here," and not "this is a punishment."

It is my intent that these punishments felt harsh, but not that they felt like a way to bypass telling someone they are not welcome. If you are not welcome here, it is not difficult to put your characters in jail and leave them there where they can only log off.

In the future violations may include all of a player's characters because it is unreasonable to expect that violations such as this only impact the character who got away with it until it was caught. These impact the community and undermine people who are using the same systems for advancement.

Myzec's characters involved will lose 444 quest points. The characters that were not involved will lose 148 quest points.

Bragar, who publicly announced he was the darkfriend, will lose all their alt quest points, be declanned, and lose 78 quest points on their other characters.

I should have spent more time engaging both of these players before the punishment and leading up to it. I should have not used Myzec's name, but his Wisdom's name in the original post. I informed both that the punishments would not be in place until we had triple-checked, that they would not be jailed or punished until that point.

I jailed both players' characters after each threatened to delevel and went on the process of giving away all their gear. While we do want them punished, we do not want martyrs. We also do not want them to be gone permanently, but this is a game and it's a community. The above actions do harm to both.

Elysia
Posts: 7908
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2015 1:29 pm

Re: Players and game violations

Post by Elysia » Tue Jul 19, 2022 8:44 pm

The Houseguest Rule is the most important rule to the Wheel of Time Mud. This rule helps ensure a welcoming and fun atmosphere for all players. While we understand players often are upset over in-game deaths, it is crossing the line to verbally harass players with belittlement or accusations that extend to that character's player. Unfortunately, such an incident occurred recently, and as a result, the player of Deimon will have all characters jailed for 2 months. Should anyone feel harassed or unconfortable as the result of another player, you should immediately report this to the Immortal Staff.

To reiterate, the Houseguest Rule is the most important rule of the mud, and any sufficient violation will face harsh consequences. Therefore, any incidents which merit recourse to the authorities should be logged and reported by yourself—likewise, any threatened or actual.

In this case, these actions include but are not limited to:

—Repeated roleplay violations which often transitioned into personal attacks.
—Revealing alts of other players in response to perceived wrong-doing.
—Using unnamed characters to grief other players for equipment.
—Cross-race activities suspected of cheating.
—Telling a player if they want to be considered for a Gaidin applicant, they need to provide him with a list of characters they play.
—Separate from this, when discussing policy with Staff, recognize that joking about social movements such as LGBTQI+, will likely not do you any favors and has us weighing your presence against the players who would feel alienated by such things.

Anyone who died to Fermin's stab would justifiably be frustrated, and there are avenues to turn to recourse, but this is a roleplaying game based on a book series by Robert Jordan called The Wheel of Time. We are a roleplaying game and community. This game can hook you in hard. We all know this—we have all been victims of it, but until we get back to playing it as a game, we will not be a space that retains new players because of bitter reactions from trapped players.

Aureus
Posts: 968
Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2020 11:13 pm

Re: Players and game violations

Post by Aureus » Mon Aug 08, 2022 9:20 pm

A player multiplayed with two characters to kill an smob and alt the gear to a third character of theirs. There seems to be a history of this, judging by our logs.

I put the two characters in jail for 6 months.

Aureus
Posts: 968
Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2020 11:13 pm

Re: Players and game violations

Post by Aureus » Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:24 pm

A Known Darkfriend was VOIPing with DS during PK. We feel this gives an unfair advantage to DS when LS globals are no longer safe to use in group PK. The character has been no-shouted for the duration of being a Known Darkfriend to prevent relaying LS globals to DS in this manner.

Aureus
Posts: 968
Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2020 11:13 pm

Re: Players and game violations

Post by Aureus » Tue Oct 25, 2022 7:55 pm

A player broke the 5/15 minute rule after dying to create a newbie on the other side and then cuss out the person who killed them, breaking the houseguest rule. I zapped that character 30 levels.

Aureus
Posts: 968
Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2020 11:13 pm

Re: Players and game violations

Post by Aureus » Fri Dec 16, 2022 5:02 pm

A player heard that scalps from the packs of people killed in PK had been dropped at a particular location for those people to retrieve. This player - who was not involved in that PK - logged on one of their characters, grabbed the scalps, and turned two of them in.

Because this is very egregious rule-breaking, this person was docked 10x the ill-gotten qps and lost their rank-based bonuses for having fallen below the threshold required for them.

Korsik
Posts: 512
Joined: Tue Apr 07, 2020 1:46 pm

Re: Players and game violations

Post by Korsik » Tue Mar 14, 2023 3:59 pm

Feeding scalps to friends for advancement is a not normal gameplay and falls into the category of making things easier than they would otherwise be. This is cheating. We recently observed an incident where a player logged in for a short period of time, made no effort, and died to another player they are frequently associated with. On review of scalp turn ins, this players scalp had only been turned in 3 times total and all by the same player. Given the pattern we are docking 10x for each scalp turned in by the offending player.

PKing against friends is OK. We do not want to discourage this. What we do want to discourage is, players that run nearly naked to berserk on their friends in a 1v1 and die so their friend can advance.

Locked