Worried about Nostalrius policy on banning accounts

[bockhorm]

Hello, resurrecting an old thread (in the proper forum section, thus the repost).

Read below with the root tuber in mind. See earlier thread (locked for being in the wrong forum section): https://forum.nostalrius.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=21509 lets bring up this discussion again!


TL;DR Nostalrius needs to stop banning people for ambiguous crimes. Rather than "Ban first, warn later" the order should be exactly the opposite in cases where the "exploit" isn't obvious.

After the latest ban wave (the root tubers) I'm sure I'm not the only one who, once again, is worried about the way that bans are being too liberally distributed on Nostalrius. The staff here seems to find it justified to ban whoever gains an "unfair" gold advantage by the means of "exploiting" bugs and/or game mechanics. Now, the "face value" of this rule cannot be disputed, but surely as many people realize, this rule is a very ambiguous one. The current policy that Nostalrius has on these issue seems to be something like "ban first, warn later". Such a policy is very misguided however, if it is applied to disputable cases. Now, I think a very few people would find that the silithus mining "bug" is not a disputable case.

I think the issue at hand is a matter of predictability. The issue with the root tubers, and previously, the silithus mining ban wave is that sure, it was considered an exploit according to the rules of Nostalrius, but hardly anyone ever suspected it was in fact the case. If people had KNOWN it was an exploit that would've avoid doing it. First of all, I'm not even sure it IS a bug. Secondly, even if it is, one has to realize how far from obvious it is that people actually perceive it as such. It has been working like that for a long time and the advantage one gets above others is non-existant since it does not prevent others from also looting the tubers.

Nostalrius has to understand how much time people spend on this game. Only being level 60 is a huge commitment for most players and permanently banning someone is a HUGE DEAL that really should only be used in obvious cases where the "crime" is great. The Alcor's sunrazor exploit was one such case. The Silithus mining however or the case at hand with root tubers... not so much.

I urge you, Nostalrius, to please reconsider your policy when banning people. Please, in ambiguous cases such as the present case with the root tubers, and earlier, the silithus mining "bug" it is just unfair to sentence a person to a permanent ban . I can understand that you want to keep a strict line here towards exploiting but honestly, what you are doing is making people paranoid. In terms of Pros and Cons, surely the benefits of being a bit more sensitive towards the players outweigh the potential downsides of not holding a strict line.

[Judgeandjuried]

Remember that time when Nostalrius banned and blamed their own volunteer testers for the AV fiasco?

Good times, +1.

[Pottu]

I have always had a huge respect for Nostalrius and their professional staff. But you just can't ban three people who are part of the community spine itself. I feel like the staff have something personally against some of the hardcore players. They should instead praise Monkeynews and other streamers who advertise their server (especially Rottix, who streamed the launch of BWL and got over 1200 viewers. The server population increased a lot the next few days after).

And why would Monkeynews, Slipry and Ranalape, who got about 100 /played days, risk a ban because of some stupid 700-900hp flowers that can't even be sold on AH. I don't think a single person knew that this was banable. I don't think anyone else beside the Staff have anything against three people "abusing" some bugged songflowers. It has absolutely 0% influence on the gameplay experience for the rest of the population.

Dear Staff of Nostalrius, i hope you will realize your mistake or expect to lose your respect from your community and some of your most loyal players. You are really nothing without us.

[antonhagerup]

Btw, can you please stop locking every threat and discuss this issue with us?

[Judgeandjuried]

Lmao @

Last edited by Pottu on Tue Mar 15, 2016 7:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Removed lying

Just for the people who missed it, Antonhagerup was implying that the staff personally had something against hardcore players which I doubt is true, but editing a post for lying and removing stuff like this definitely doesn't make it look better.

[Setup]

I don't think a single person knew that this was banable.

I've been invited to farm (or "bug abuse", if you prefer) those items in a group before. I never accepted, but it also never crossed my mind that it might be illegal, because it was possible in retail vanilla.

Of course ignorance of the law is no excuse, and GMs probably don't have the authority to use their own judgment in a lot of cases. It's a tricky situation.

[Pottu]

Just for the people who missed it, Antonhagerup was implying that the staff personally had something against hardcore players which I doubt is true, but editing a post for lying and removing stuff like this definitely doesn't make it look better.

He is still implying it and since that is a matter of opinion, I left it in. He made another, completely absurd, claim as well, which I removed.

[Diametra]

Conspiracy theories always make any discussion more interesting.

[Eligius]

They have always perm banned for random stuff like this (silithus miners, infinite gathering, etc..)
Id advise that if you have any doubt that what you're doing could be considered sketchy you should just write a ticket to make sure

[Ana]

Uh... the problem is when you don't have any doubt whatsoever whether something is sketchy (because it has no reason to be considered such) and then a banhammer comes anyway.