Staff Feedback Thread

[Garrett Jax]

I heard Alucard's and now Mort's ban, now gotta log to say, you people are outta of your minds by being trigger happy about banning your own most active members for something accidental or so minor, not to mention Mort is the least malicious person you could find in the community

Quantity doesn't equal quality. And if the player's trolling behavior drives other players away, then his contributions to the game become a net negative.

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[Hitman-76]

What if Mort dropped /1 /2 and killed Haste or a hasteric buddy buddy?

Just saying, this ban is obviously biased and shouldn't have happened.

[LaWey]

Okay, after Haste commentary, I more or less got what is 1.1 for here, but... really, if you wanted to set an exemplary, warning or 1 week ban would've been enough.
While I think that discussion would've been started as well, that would've been less shocking, and perceived well better.
I mean, Mort is playing with a big number of different factions, which have a lot of good RPers.
Mort is a very cooperative man, and I do believe even warning would be enough for others to pay attention to a problem and help him improve.

[Haste]

2.1 - You must provide sufficient roleplay before attacking another player, and give them enough time to react. This means at least two messages and 10 seconds delay before attacking.
Note: Every form of RP is acceptable.
As I understand it, this rule has not been violated. You punished a person in the absence of a violation, no matter what you say about roleplaying and the viability of the server.

Mort was not sanctioned for violating rule 2.1. He was sanctioned for violating rule 1.1, primarily, at least in my opinion:

1.1 - Discovery is an English-language roleplaying server. Communication in-game and in the roleplaying areas of the forums must be in-character and appropriate for Discovery Freelancer's setting. Metagaming and powergaming are strictly forbidden.

Messages in chat to notify a player that you're about to attack them are, by definition, "communication in-game". As stated in that rule, communication in-game has to be in-character. It's fairly easy to argue that, in addition, making references to other players' English skills -- specifically yours -- in the roleplay environment is metagaming, another aspect of that very same rule.

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This server lives thanks to players like Sergei (Mort). I feel that you can not get through to you, otherwise it would have turned out, justifying the unfair ban, you would have admitted your mistake. In your time you were reprimanded and you accepted and drew conclusions. So why was Sergei deprived of such a chance? Or does he not have the right to do so? Yes, I don't know the language, and may have violated server rules many times. And, when it was explained to me I tried not to allow it from now on, unless in the rush of battle or accidentally. If this server prioritizes the subjective opinion of the administration, just say so -- it's our decision, and I don't care what the majority of players think.

I agree with you. I openly questioned the staff team's (and my own) decision in my reply to Mort's sanction thread:

Now, a perfectly valid question to ask in response to the above quote is, of course, to ask why Mort wasn't warned, just like I was. To be quite honest, I don't have a good answer to that right now.

As with every sanction, especially those that give rise to a strong community response like Mort's, the staff team has been discussing Mort's sanction and will continue to do so. We are all human beings, and sometimes we act on instinct and sometimes we make mistakes. It's very possible that speaking to Mort in private and asking him to "knock it off" the same way I was asked to "do better" back in the day would have worked better than this ban in achieving our goal of correcting rule-violating behaviour. I don't really know. You likely know him much better than I, so perhaps I misjudged him.

What if Mort dropped /1 /2 and killed Haste or a hasteric buddy buddy?

If we banned players for blowing me up there'd be nobody left on the server.

[Venemon]

I heard Alucard's and now Mort's ban, now gotta log to say, you people are outta of your minds by being trigger happy about banning your own most active members for something accidental or so minor, not to mention Mort is the least malicious person you could find in the community

Quantity doesn't equal quality. And if the player's trolling behavior drives other players away, then his contributions to the game become a net negative.

I do not want to disrespectful to you but playing the game is now defined as trolling? glad I havent played in the server let me see, over a year now, no wonder it became so arid and tasteless.
also see haste's comment "I was an asshole, so keep being asshole, admin messaged me and I became a goodboy" little he forgets, he is comparing himself to other poeple and he IS an asshole by not granting Mort the same treatment but voting him to be banned

this is like, let me make an example to my 40 player community but banning each member until they stop playing, so you can have fun with the what left, hence it never expands

[Lemon]

I heard Alucard's and now Mort's ban, now gotta log to say, you people are outta of your minds by being trigger happy about banning your own most active members for something accidental or so minor, not to mention Mort is the least malicious person you could find in the community

Quantity doesn't equal quality. And if the player's trolling behavior drives other players away, then his contributions to the game become a net negative.

The balance now forces big fights, small skirmishes are boring as hell, and Mort has been the catalyst for side balance and raid generation for a long time. There is absolutely no question he is net positive. Just look at the responses here from people who very much dislike each other.

I've seen the evidence, the tiny actual amount of it, and this is even more baffling to somehow warrant a month's ban. It's seeing and assuming the worst in players, as we've seen many times before from Haste.

[SSV]

On the radar contact crybabies

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[White--Wolf]

When I Filed a report for same exact reason /1 /2..it was brushed off saying "this is a RP server, his is valid"
well now I know why they call admins are biased

[Eternal.Journey]

My previous points remain. I have learned all I have needed to from the matter, I have spoken to them, and it will be handled personally on a 1 to 1 basis between myself and him, as said case that turns out it was, was my own report against him.

As for finding out that the case highlighted was yet another "No Action" case, It does beg the question, what do you truly have to do to be classified as 1.0 rulebreaking. because to me, the evidence posted is a little weak for the Month Ban, and yet the evidence that I would have understood it for, was voted as fine? Okay.

I don't want to publicly shame Mort for what he did. He's probably heard enough chats in Wilde over it, and while he remained silent for them, he has given me his apology on the incident today, and has offered to replace what he did because of his negative impact in that moment. That I can respect, and he has my forgiveness for being decent and admitting he did wrong.

See what happens when information is distributed to the right people? Shit gets Sorted. Real quick, and in an understanding manner.

What I cannot fathom, is how the evidence that was sent to those of us who requested it was how the sanction goes through, yet ignoring roleplay (that was instigated by him) to then shoot that person for being silent (when said person was not silent), to then post a video of just the shooting part, and then delete said character once said incident had happened... How is this not considered a 1.0 Violation, but the evidence that was sent in, is?

This has quite literally destroyed my last inkling of faith I had in staff to make reliable decisions. Is there something I'm completely missing with this?

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[Haste]

Discovery has always tried to cater to a wide range of players. We fully understand that there are players who just want to play Freelancer in multiplayer. They want to fly spaceships and shoot guns at other spaceships. Now, Connecticut already exists as a completely out of roleplay arena for them to do this in, but in addition to this, Discovery has always allowed players to roleplay little more than glorified NPCs. Setmessages being valid ways to abide by the "two lines minimum" rule are another way for players to effortlessly "do the bare minimum", even if their typing speed or English skills are lacking.

At the same time, however, Discovery is still a roleplay server. It wants to not only accommodate the types of players mentioned above, but also those players who put in a bit more effort. Their characters are often more thought-out: they have a place of birth, parents, and a(n eventful) life that shaped them into the "people" they are. These players are trying to immerse themselves into the game universe. And if we want them to have fun and stick around, we need to throw them a bone, too. If everywhere they fly they bump into LPI ships writing "STOP! You violated the law. Pay the court a fine or serve your sentence. Your stolen goods are now forfeit." then they'll likely conclude that the "RP" in the server title is nothing more than a farce.

Discovery once had a healthier balance of these two player types, and also many more players somewhere in-between. I don't personally know the perfect solution for how we can reasonably cater to everyone, in the way that we've been trying to for so long. Picking one or the other would likely be easier, but would also obviously rob the other group of players of a game to play. Either way, I believe that for Discovery to function as a "light RP" environment at the very least, some standards need be enforced.

I don't want to publicly shame Mort for what he did. He's probably heard enough chats in Wilde over it, and while he remained silent for them, he has given me his apology on the incident today, and has offered to replace what he did because of his negative impact in that moment. That I can respect, and he has my forgiveness for being decent and admitting he did wrong.

I will just go on record and say that several members of staff weighed the incident you're referring to quite heavily when making this decision.

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