Darkfriend Woes

[Vannor]

I don't know the character's past, but pretty much every time there's a public post like this, it turns out the Imm decision was pretty reasonable and the person's just trying to raise public support because the Imms can't share private details like that. See Myzec, Vannor, etc etc.

I could understand this mentality if he was denied prior to becoming known. After becoming known, it seems really weird that his suddenly "checkered past" becomes an issue.

Like, why bother letting him work his way up the chain to be one step (?) away from achieving remort only to be told to start over after the moratorium begins?

Lots of reasons are possible - there weren't many Imm checks along the way to begin with (anyone could become a DF) so the main one was going Known. But once there, there have been a few Knowns with some...problematic ways of going through the process. At least two I can think of, which is a lot when there are like 7 total. I can understand Imms' hesitation to keep someone in the process, especially someone who's only done the smobbing/eq gathering piece (not the hard part of DF), if they think they'd need to intervene later on.

Note: you didn't do the hard path of DF and you're still a DL, you only did the smobbing component yourself (with some shady shenanigans around flipfarming CTFs at the time).

Despite spitting the dummy when you originally were told no to a class change, and then got it anyway.

Glass houses and all that, I guess

[Naerin]

Good to see you again, Vannor. Guess the last two times you quit didn't mean much?

It's a good point though. I pked my way up, while you cheated to get through the system quickly.

Glass houses and all.

[Vannor]

Good to see you again, Vannor. Guess the last two times you quit didn't mean much?

It's a good point though. I pked my way up, while you cheated to get through the system quickly.

Glass houses and all.

Oh I don't intend on logging into the game ever again. Vials were like 5% of the whole process? Perspective.

You pkd your way through known DF? Must've missed it. You cried a sea of salt tears around 1005altqps if I recall.

This other DF guy here deserves the same chance you all got. Fairs fair

Edit: Was less now I think about it, you 'pkd your way up' for like a week tops. Probably more like 1005altqps. Same as Faiz. At least Lissenet toughed it out to like 1100 or something before he ragequit known DF.

[Morella]

who wants popcorn?

[erulak]

Guess the last two times you quit didn't mean much?

Don't hold it against Vannor for coming back around when Talimar -- nay WoTMUD -- needs him. It's nice to have someone willing to offer protection over and over again.

[jafra]

Should not have made exceptions for any of the DFs, with some being converted to DL and others not.

Should have all been equally fucked IMO

[Nylen]

Staff is working to finalize a new process for darkfriends with more information to be shared in the coming weeks. As an initial step, we will be addressing characters with under 500 ALTQPS. Each character will be unflagged as a darkfriend, audited, and awarded 1QP per 9ALTQPS. This is narrow the population of unknown darkfriends as we move away from an equipment turn in based process. If you fall into this category and have any questions, please feel free to contact me via forum mail or discord.

Previously, I'd placed a moratorium on unknown darkfriends. I am now extending this known, as well.

I will be working with known darkfriends to find a resolution to their status. They are encouraged to mail the staff group to check in and be advised of their options.

This moratorium will end once we have revised the system to account for the issues the current system presents.

I recently found my way back to this game as a former known Darkfriend with over 1000 alt qp. As such, I thought to mail the staff and be 'advised of my options'. Those options were as follows:

Given the prior history of the character and checkered past, we are going to be cashing out your altqps for qps. Ratio is 9:1, 113qps. You will no longer be a known DF and will be free to enter the new process when it is started. Please contact a 104 for a name change.

I'm not sure what a male channeler would do with 113 qp, but I suppose it's a generous offer. I particularly like the chance to redo the entire process at some undefined time in the future, that sounds appealing. I'm unsure as to what my checkered past entails, as it wasn't serious enough to prevent me from rising in the Darkfriend ranks in the first place, which it seemingly should have done. I would be interested in knowing if other existing known Darkfriends were given equally generous offers.

Sad to see it end this way. Very much enjoyed playing with you across alts over the years. Was looking forward to seeing what options you'd be given as a known df when you returned recently. This wasn't what I had expected. I agree with Elissa's comments, and with the result, they might have well just deleted Talimar for you to save you the time this weekend.

Lost a good player. You have my discord - hope you stay in touch.

[huck]

Talimar, that sounds like a very rough deal (based on the information shared). The immortals have the right and authority to make the calls and sometimes they are unfair and probably have a hint of perceived favoritism.

My suggestion is to understand their reasons for making the decision and then propose a way forward that aligns with your goals within the game and the system they are trying to run. Perhaps they may be open to transferring the qps to another alt you are planning to progress as an example.

It would be an amazing outcome if you could speak to a few imms to find common ground and respond back here to say "We figured it out!"

[Zangief]

When things like this come up, it adds to the database of how players are handled or treated, and we have countless cases. Then you have the drawn out public discourse in cases like this, and on the flip side all of the private discourse of which pieces may or may not find their way into the public discourse. Then eventually people get tired, memes and art work are created and feuds fueled, until the next thing.

People generally like consistency, that said, when you have cases like this go public, it adds to the collective of everyone’s reference to draw on. So everyone gets to compare everything case by case and the nuances are generally not public. That said, the average person isn’t privy to all the minutiae that dictates the outcome of each case, so it’s usually generalized when comparing like cases.

Examples of common inconsistencies would be known dfs getting remort, remort class changes, name changes, clan switching, punishments, etc.

So in all reality these cases going public are actually a good way to compare notes and cases to get a glimpse at the differences in consistency. In this case I’ve always been curious about our most recent additions to remort and the details of them.

[Talimar]

It wasn't my intention to start some kind of flame war here, I don't know Vannor or Naerin, or their stories really, but here isn't the place to attack each other. I'm not interested in pointing fingers at other players, if someone got an easy ride to DL status, that reflects decisions made upstairs. I don't even care about remorting, that wasn't why I reached out in the first place. I only wanted to be advised of my options as the staff suggested. If that meant to wait until the new system were in place and continue along there, I would have been fine with that. Getting reduced to 0 and told I can restart isn't an option, it's an insult. I actually enjoyed the RP of being a DF, and over the years got into a lot of ic mischief that I never received any kind of reward for, nor did I expect to. To be told years of effort and character progression is worth a name change and not even enough qp to make rank 5? That doesn't even seem remotely fair.

The imms checked me each time I ranked up, and while I don't know the extent of what those checks were, no mention of any checkering that would prevent me from continuing was ever mentioned, until now. One would think when I was raised to known, this would have either prevented that entirely, or it would have been made known to me that known DF was my last stop and there was no point in attempting to go any further. I can't imagine how I'd feel if I fought my way to 1500 like others, only to get denied arbitrarily at the end, so I suppose it's a silver lining that it happened after a long hiatus.

I won't pretend I haven't done questionable things in the past, namely, in 2013, I turned in about 200 qp worth of unearned gear, got caught and was docked about 1000 qp for it, and deservedly so. Mind you, this was regular QP in a clan and not altqp, but either way, it was wrong. I then proceeded to make my way up the DF ranks in 2015, 2018 and 2020, and my past was never brought up as an issue.