I have been playing on the server now for about two months, I have seen a lot of people I play with in the guild get banned, friends get banned and I also got myself banned during my first week of playing for a minor thing. I see people get banned on the server every day and I have also reported several people for various things.
So the issue I have seen and discussed with guild members and friends is that the punishment or lack thereof is highly inconsistent and I am a bit curious as to why that is. Does the GM's not have guidelines to follow or discuss the cases with each other if they are unsure of what to do?
As an example, I recently reported a person for needing on a iLevel 200 BoE Agility ring as a paladin when he had 245 equipped in both slots. So this person needed on an item he or she did not need, which is my definition of a ninja. I got a reply the day after that the person was to be investigated. Now several weeks later he has not been banned yet.
The reason I feel like the GM's are inconsistent is that more then once I reported very similar if not identical cases where the person got banned instantly. The only difference in the cases was the GM who responded to the ticket.
Also related to this a friend of mine got an interesting reply on a ticket where a warrior needed on a caster ring he clearly did not need and other people needed on it too, that actually needed it. My friend reported this person and the result was not that the person was investigated or anything, the response was "Since he didn't win the roll, in my opinion he didn't ninja the item". So the reason given was that he didn't actually ninja the item, he only attempted to ninja it. So the fact that he didn't win it, he doesn't deserve a ban.
So the point I am trying to prove is that you can get lucky and avoid a ban depending on what GM you get to respond to the persons report. I feel like that shouldn't be the case. Or vice versa you might get banned for something another GM might not have banned you for, it feels a bit unfair to the person who actually gets banned.
Now I know a lot of people will look at this as me trying to talk bad about the GM's, that is not what I am trying to do. I am just expressing my concerns and only want to improve the consistency of the rules that should be applied to the server.
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Member
Inconsistent Game Masters
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Field Medic Moderator
While your concerns may be genuine and you only have people's best interests at heart, it is important that we dispel some falsities and fallacies on a topic such as this. I'll do my best to address each of the points you bring up and hopefully you will have a better perspective of the staff's side of things here.
Yes. Our Game Master team has a very specific set of rules and guidelines that they must follow when doing their duties. Some of these guidelines permit the Game Master in question to judge themselves the severity of the offense, which can in turn cause some offenses appear to have varying punishments. Especially when addressing something as ambiguous as "ninja looting", because so many people have such widely varying opinions on what constitutes "ninja looting".
To be clear, what matters here in how a Game Master addresses the issue is what the guidelines and rules dictate how the situation must be handled. As per the official rules, someone who need rolls on an item that they shouldn't, but they do *NOT* win said item, that does *NOT* constitute as "ninja looting". It is seen more as "attempted ninja looting", which is not quite the same, and as such is not a punishable offense. Your opinion on what qualifies as what is or is not "ninja looting" is just that - your opinion. Our rules and guidelines do not bend or change depending on our member's viewpoints of what should or should not be considered a punishable offense. Expecting someone to be punished for something *you* consider should be punishable is not how our guidelines and rules function, and permitting it to function in such a way would be highly unprofessional. We do not operate based on *feelings*, we operate based on policies and precedents to be conducted in as a professional manner as possible.
As mentioned above, in many cases where the offense can be ambiguous and up to interpretation, the Game Master in question is permitted to punish (or not) the person based on the severity of the offense. Now, this is not to say that the rules themselves are up to interpretation, as they are very clear as to what IS a punishable offense (which does *NOT* include your own opinion on the matter). Instead, what is up to interpretation by the Game Master is the severity of the punishment. This means that the Game Master in question is also free to decide that the person should be "let off the hook". Something that may seem to be a "classic case of ninja looting" to you, may be interpreted by a Game Master as a newbie mistake by another player that does not warrant a punishment at all, but instead having that player being guided as to which items they should or should not be rolling on.
Correct. As explained above, someone need rolling on an item itself is not a punishable offense. They did not win the item, therefore there is no harm done. Instead, you have the opportunity to explain to the person in question why they should not be rolling on aforementioned item, instead of responding with hostility that you are going to report them and try to get them banned. Being *THIS* level of intolerant of other player's mistakes is something that not only baffles me, but many other members of the staff. This ruleset does not exist for the sake of "OH MY GOD THIS GUY MADE A MISTAKE LETS GET HIM BANNED". It exists for handling those who are actual predators of the looting system. To treat it as anything but that, is something that we feel needs a lesson in humility and tolerance for the person doing the reporting.
The fact that you feel you can get "lucky" about getting someone banned because of your own intolerance of the mistakes of other people playing the game speaks for itself. This issue of "ninja looting" shouldn't be a battle about how you can get a Game Master to side with you, or the likelihood of you getting someone banned because they upset you because you have some ridiculously difficult to live-up-to standard of the other players of the game. Instead, the rule should be used against people who egregiously abuse the system, and should encourage more generous and kind behaviour of players in general, in the fashion that you should be teaching each other what items are good to roll on, which stats are good for which kind of characters, and teaching each other that gearscore is *NOT* the end-all, be-all determining factor of whether an item is good.
In closing, I'd like to suggest that yourself and others who treat this rule system like just mentioned above, to try and be better versions of yourselves - and in so doing, try to help those who have a lesser understand of how the game and its stat system work, so that they can improve their own gameplay and improve upon the quality of the community - a community that is generous and kind to each other, instead of trying to figure out how they can get each other banned.
Thank you for your time and patience. I will now be closing this thread.
~Mercy
