Banning and Player Treatment

[VDub]

People can say what they want.... The community and staff hold ridiculous grudges over insane amounts of time.

Sorry this happened to you Athorn. Believe me, I feel ya.

[edmaster]

That person is dum for saying such a thing, chances are, they are a sad little man/woman/they/them and really, should just be ignored.

People make mistakes. You learned from your mistake and moved on. Jeesh.

[FallingStar]

I hope you told this person to get a life. I can barely remember any games I played back in 2014, let alone who was banned and for what from whichever NwN2 servers I played on. Imagine having such an uneventful existence that you retain something like this for seven years.

If it makes you feel any better, I was banned from Sundren many, many moons ago for committing the horrendously malicious act of rerolling a character, the same character with a few build changes, and transferring her gear. I ruined the lives of so many players on that fateful day. They really made the bust of the decade.

I don't even think I knew there was a rule against it, that happened in like 2011 or something.

[Maecius]

Let's not turn this into an attack on the person who attacked athornforyourheart, or we're committing the same sins. Please keep comments supportive of athorn, not offensive against someone who can't currently defend themselves.

This reminder is not directed at any one person in particular. But the general tone/direction of this thread will get it locked if continued. I don't want us, as a community, to try to un-do Jude's hurt by hurting someone else.

[c2k]

"victimless crime".

That is an oxymoron, because if there were no victims, there would be no crime.

Cheating, hacking, and exploiting is not victimless. It affects the server. Ever wonder why this server has so many rules and run scripts that fire at certain times(some which can be invasive to your character)? Its because someone found a way to exploit something and staff did their best to patch it up. And that is just one way it can interfere with other players. So, in that regard, these offenses should be taken seriously.

That said, however, its not really up to us players to determine whether or not a player can or has atoned for such acts; that is the job of the staff. So, there is no reason to bully or demean someone whom staff has put back in good standing with the server. All that really does is put the target on you, as you are breaking other rules.

[Hoihe]

I was gonna write a very long comment but I'll be very short.

It's just a videogame and we are uknown people who won't meet once we get older and the server closes up. Your characters have no feelings and they can't feel harm. Enjoy the game and forget everything else.

Treating digital media different from meatspace is a mistake people make constantly, and it frustrates me. Digital media holds equal if not superior value to whatever meatspace offers. The only special-quality meatspace relationships have over long-distance is the fact that meatspace happens to be the environment where you must practice hygiene and consume food to survival.

The people one engages with in long-distance interactions are not "unknown people" and whether or not they are met is completely and utterly irrelevant. Stop placing geographically-available interactions on an unearned pedestal while disparaging those that are limited by geography.

As for characters having no feelings nor feel harm - I for one would not create characters in settings where they may be subjected to undue suffering, as such would be cruelty. But we may have differing values, as indicated by the mistaken desire to disparage digital interactions.

I hope you told this person to get a life. I can barely remember any games I played back in 2014, let alone who was banned and for what from whichever NwN2 servers I played on. Imagine having such an uneventful existence that you retain something like this for seven years.

If it makes you feel any better, I was banned from Sundren many, many moons ago for committing the horrendously malicious act of rerolling a character, the same character with a few build changes, and transferring her gear. I ruined the lives of so many players on that fateful day. They really made the bust of the decade.

I don't even think I knew there was a rule against it, that happened in like 2011 or something.

While I do not really care either way regarding someone doing an exploit a few years ago, the fact that some people are proud of having rather undetailed memory is worrying.

Without a strong memory, we leave ourselves open to be abused over, and over again. And over again. Many times I have thought someone to have changed only for them to pretend to be friendly for sake of collecting out-of-context information to bring shame to me and use it to make disparaging remarks. Long-standing grudges have a reason to exist.

Random dude duplicating items doesn't really give reason to grudges. But other things? Please for the love of all that is holy, unholy and whatnot - stop pretending it's healthy to pretend someone hurting you in the past (or your values) did nothing wrong.

I for one remember with detail my digital interactions going back well into 2011, especially if said interactions have left me, or values I hold dear, in one way or another as subjects of harm.

And contrary to popular belief, I do myself have a life. Said life includes long-distance, geography-transcendent interactions with the same or potentially superior weight to those interactions imposed upon me by unfortunate geography.

Can we please stop with the "It's just a game lelelele" and "It's just digital" remarks? I am sorry to hear that the lot of you feel interactions forced upon you by national borders and driving distances to hold more weight to ones you can actually choose and transcend geographical limitations with.

[EasternCheesE]

^^
While your point is valid and life doesn't always make people to rethink their actions and fix their behaviour, i want to point that, particularly, topicstarter has shown a good example of a person who did it successfully. Be a feeling of guilt or not, i don't really care what made Jude to work hard, i simply see the results and i'm very grateful for having them no matter the reasons that made Jude to put his time and spirit into them.
I don't try to argue with points you made, Hoihe, i believe your experience is valid and you have your reasons to have trust issues (no offence). You just made me to think about it and share my own piece of thoughts that may (i hope) help in a little bit.

I don't want to justify cheating or whatever, but in with this particular person, the damages done are done long ago while all the good things Jude added will stay until server ever closes. Even if one just who cheated in past, rethinked their behavior and simply returned to play fairly, that's pretty much enough for me.
For some, punishment doesn't give them a food for thought and doesn't make them eager to change.
For others, being punished and having chance to reestablish and start from the "clear sheet" is a very important thing.
We all are not saints, after all (Well, except me since i have legal right to break stuff to report it, so i do it quite often :p. Just kidding), so while i understand that people can mistrust those who made their mistakes in past, we too have to consider that we all make mistakes and having no chance to ever get cleared of it, doesn't actually encourage people to find their strength to change.

To me, keeping reminding about 7 years old mistake (Even if person was a complete jerk that time), when the very same person doesn't show up same behavior for quite a several years already, is against the spirit of what human moral is and is totally against the spirit of server rules.
That's why the whole situation triggered me quite badly.

People do crap, people learn, people have right not to have their nose stuck into crap they did long time ago and never did that since then.
Honestly, for quite a long time, i feel that many people of Bgtscc i speak in both discord and forums are very fast to make suggestions and decisions and don't try to make sure person that did whoopsie did really mean to do it. I myself try not to burn bridges unless something feels really wrong to me over some time my patience allows me to endure it.

Just to sum up, in this particular situation, i feel like we shifted too far on the axis of "Total tolerance for ex-baddies --- Total hatred to ex-baddies" to the hatred direction.
I hate cheating myself, but we are human being and everyone cheated in their life, for various reasons and with various justifications to it.
If people show evidence they changed, give them chance, if they don't, collect evidence and make sure they are banned, please, don't turn into gossip chatterbox that haunt everyone for their mistakes forever. It totally doesn't help people to get better and it totally doesn't prevent people from doing crap, but it actually prevents people to resocialize and feel safe.

Sure, blaming and reminding every crap everyone did in their life is a good way to keep society in order, but, do you want this order for you?
This may sound rude, but hey, you western people, i lived 1/3 of my life in small town after USSR breakup and many things in my homeland culture resemble the prison culture that ties people and gives them very few opportunities to reestablish themself from their mistakes. Do you really want to make the virtual community you come to try to have fun at? If you want to see an example, look east, i belive you understand what i'm talking about.
Let's not keep punishing people who served their sentence but let's not keep our eyes shut on violations. Try to find the golden middle.

[FallingStar]

While I do not really care either way regarding someone doing an exploit a few years ago, the fact that some people are proud of having rather undetailed memory is worrying.

Without a strong memory, we leave ourselves open to be abused over, and over again. And over again. Many times I have thought someone to have changed only for them to pretend to be friendly for sake of collecting out-of-context information to bring shame to me and use it to make disparaging remarks. Long-standing grudges have a reason to exist.

Random dude duplicating items doesn't really give reason to grudges. But other things? Please for the love of all that is holy, unholy and whatnot - stop pretending it's healthy to pretend someone hurting you in the past (or your values) did nothing wrong.

I for one remember with detail my digital interactions going back well into 2011, especially if said interactions have left me, or values I hold dear, in one way or another as subjects of harm.

And contrary to popular belief, I do myself have a life. Said life includes long-distance, geography-transcendent interactions with the same or potentially superior weight to those interactions imposed upon me by unfortunate geography.

Can we please stop with the "It's just a game lelelele" and "It's just digital" remarks? I am sorry to hear that the lot of you feel interactions forced upon you by national borders and driving distances to hold more weight to ones you can actually choose and transcend geographical limitations with.

...what?

He did something on par with, like, exploiting a mechanical pathing glitch while grinding. In 2014.

Think before you throw the word "abuse" around. I didn't say you have no life.

[Snarfy]

Can this thread keel over and croak already? The level of 'pot calling the kettle black'-ery is getting to be a bit much.

Nearly everyone on this server, including myself, holds grudges or talks smack about someone else at any given moment(except maybe that Maecius guy, he's swell like that), regardless if the "offender" has cheated, broken the rules, been a pvp-monger, metagamer, or just plain wasn't the slanderers cup of RP tea. The only difference is that some folks take it to the forums, while others hurl shade behind the veil of tells or discord, where the general populace cant see. Neither of which method is less ugly than the other.

How about we all all get off our high horses, stop pretending like we've never been mean to someone else on this game, and instead try and clean up our acts and get back to being a cohesive playerbase.

[Planehopper]

Pretty telling when a thread like this gets locked.

The fact that its repeat offenders makes it easier to understand.

I am locking this and will follow up in PMs.

Sorry Jude. You couldn't be more right.

If anyone has anything of value that you'd like to add here, send me or the mod distro a PM and we'll look at reopening it after this is dealt with.