Announcement: New Rules are here

[Thyrzul]

The old versions were clumsy, cluttered up and by no means clearer.

They weren't the best but were still more specific than the current even more vague rules and the (not so) clarification thread combined.

I know you and I are polar opposites on just about every spectrum Thyr, but I'll try to convey this to you the way I see it. The clearer you get, the more loopholes are available AND the more legitimate roleplay is disallowed.

Prime example:

3.6 Attacking without Roleplay

No mention of a silly 'engagement notice', no mention of time limits, what constitutes an attack, et cetera. Not specific in the slightest. It'll allow for combat and the roleplay surrounding it to proceed much more organically, and gives the admin team the ability to handle things on more of a case by case basis rather than "was this guy an absolute twat? Yes. Did he break our extraordinarily descriptive rules? Nope, can't do anything." which was largely the norm in the past.

I'm not sure if that's their take on it as well, but I'm hoping it is. I don't find the rewrite itself to be as much a problem as the "you're a guest here and we can get rid of you whenever we like" mentality, but I think that's less the team's actual belief than it is a certain amount of posturing necessary to get the message through to certain elements playing on the server.

At the same time the vaguer the rules get the more interpretations you'll find and then it'll becomes a guessing game of whether you think the same as the staff or not. If you are unlucky, you get caught in a sanction without actually intentionally breaking the rules. I understand blurring the lines is to grant the Staff the ability to claim this or that bad on the spot when encountering a loophole, but it technically grants them that power without limits.

And I pray them using their powers responsibly, but I can tell that due to past experiences I do not trust a good few Staff members with the powers they have, not being sufficiently reasonable or unbiased for the position they have. Can't claim stuff in the names of others but I saw similar responses before from other members of the community, and while I personally did not care about it, the "you are a guest, things go this way, suck it up or leave" attitude sure wasn't a good PR move to help earn trust.

EDIT:
As a sidenote to the "you are nothing without us" d!ckwaving, yes, the game is empty without players, at the same time chaotic without Staff, so it goes both ways and the community dies out sooner or later without either side. Keep in mind that both players and Staff are required to run this place, so let's work together not to screw up, shall we?

---