Suggestions for Updates to the Game Terms and Conditions / Forum Rules and Regulations

yeah, we can discuss we are discussing, but will it change?

if it will change, how about the ppl cant report harrssment cause they dont know the new rule or harrssed in the early past during this time? how about the ppl get hurted by the attidude showed in this rule? they may feel being humiliated and just leave this server, i gusee many ppl alr did.

Correctly there is no perfert rule, thats really why we need disscussion before implement it rather than adjust it because of big counterback after implementation.

 

If you really want visibility, sticky the thread instead of your Wulin Yaoseng one and get people to make some in game announcements (do Staff still log in the game in December 2k20?) to get players who don't frequent the forums to have a voice

I think permanent bans should be removed from all bans for minor infractions. Somewhere in the range of 30-90 days for third offence would represent a reasonable alternative.

Minor Infractions:

Objectionable Behavior (Harassment) - The act of engaging in any sort of rude, harassing, vulgar, obscene, hateful, threatening or abusive discourse with another player, or alternatively in a setting in which unintended audiences may be present such as all publically transmitted chat or serverwide messages. This includes persistent badgering, flaming, mass defamation or disruption of another player. Punishment: First offense - 3 day ban, Second offense, 7 day ban, Third offense - Permanent ban.

Scamming needs to be formally written into this or added as a separate infraction.
Whilst I don't agree with the "10+ defames rule" and think a finite value is entirely counterintuitive to the concept that mass defamation count as harassment, if Staff are decided on this then it needs to also be formally written in.
Strongly suggest rewriting this infraction because it's extremely broad in the way it's currently worded. The more specific it is, the less people will be technically able to weaponise the rule.

Hate Speech - The act of transmitting any sort of content or acting out any scenario which could be perceived as derogatory or otherwise prejudiced towards any group of people based on their race, sex, gender, life choices, or any other division. Punishment: First offense - 3 day ban, Second offense - 7 day ban, Third offense - Permanent ban.

Is there any reason why this can't be written into the same infraction as harassment?

Kill-stealing - The act of attacking bosses or monsters on a map persistently without the system designation of ownership via the ~mapowner in-game command, or alternatively last-hitting any bosses or monsters on a map without that same designation, without the expressed permission of the player who does have that designation. Punishment: First offense - 3 day ban, Second offense - 7 day ban, Third offense - Permanent ban.

Map ownership is a controversial topic and I would strongly recommend staff read through and discuss the various feedback threads pertaining to kill-stealing and map ownership before they finalise this.

Map Looting - The act of looting one or more items dropped from a boss monster, regular monster or other map element without the system designation of ownership via the /mapowner in-game command, or alternatively without the expressed permission of the player who does have that designation. Punishment: First offense - 3 day ban, Second offense - 7 day ban, Third offense - Permanent ban.

Imagine if boss looters can't be banned for this because they hold map-ownership x)

Like I mentioned in the previous post, I would recommend glitch abuse and robotic play be moved to minor infractions.

 

I was always curious about account sharing related ban and the idea behind it. So if a GM could explain why it's worthy of a perma ban, I will concede.
I think if it's coming to the point of an "unfair advantage" when training and stuff, it's becoming less and less of an issue especially when people have optimized getting a character from 0-120 in a week's time just by funneling tons and tons of meso.

But I never thought that account sharing should be a super bannable offense. Like what if I wanted to show my girlfriend what Maple Royals is like and she doesn't want to start at level 1 whacking snails and just wants to see what it's like at 4th job to show that there's a lot of content she can explore? Or what if I loaned a friend equipment that they're too busy to get back to me (ya know, life sometimes prevents us from logging on) and I need it back some how?

I just remembered in OG GMS whenever I wanted to try a new class, I would just ask my friends to let me try their account to see if the class was something I wanted to make and it wasn't an issue.

 

For harassment or similarly related bans, I think there needs to be a duration change depending on the victim of harassment. ^Someone previously mentioned 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, etc. for harassment but I believe this should be significantly elevated for consecutive harassment towards the same person. For example, the same incrementation as above but add a ban duration multiplier if the harassment was on the same person. The worst thing that can happen is for someone to get threatened/harassed again by the same person they reported a few days ago.

E.g. Person A receives 7 day ban for harassing Person B. Person A serves 7 day ban and is salty/didn't learn their lesson. Person A harasses Person B again. This time instead of being banned for 14 days, increased by victim multiplier and instead receives a 20 or 25 day ban.

 

I wonder if we can add this into Objectionable Behavior (Disruption):
False accusation - the act of intentionally spreading false information that seriously disrupts the game or individuals

 

I've never really liked this rule elsewhere. What it usually entails is a bug in the game that makes players DC, so someone will smega something dumb like "do X thing for 20m!" someone will do it, and subsequently disconnect. Unless you have another example of what this rule would enforce I don't want to see people getting banned for simply trolling—it's like going to jail for doing a harmless prank.

I believe (after checking out many previous posts about it) that it has to do with a few key points, not that I agree with the rule itself:
1.) It's always been this way, it's been the tradition on MapleRoyals since it's inception, also known as argumentum ad antiquitatem.
2.) Account sharing being against the rules makes it much easier to track accounts that are given away/sold whether it's RMT or not.
3.) People are responsible for their accounts and anything that happens on them, blame cannot be shifted elsewhere if something happens against the ToS while on said account.
4.) It subtly inflates the player-count as people aren't sharing mule characters.
5.) It (as you say in your post) puts everyone on the same playing field (assuming they don't break the rule(s)) where players must make accounts and level them themselves instead of inheriting accounts/characters from others/friends.

I'm sure I missed a few points, but you get the idea, it makes just as much sense to have the rule in place as not in my opinion as there are opposing thoughts to every single point that I made above but I still think it's decently fair. Not really sure what to tell you on the gear lending issue, but screensharing is probably the best option to show someone the game, I guess. I never really thought of account sharing as a super bannable offense either and I think MapleRoyals is one of, if not the only RPG I have ever played where it is. The only times on other RPGs where it is against the rules are when it's when the server is fresh, there's a new game-mode where competition is steep, and they only want 1 person playing on an account to keep it fair. Since Royals is basically the grandpa of the MapleStory private server scene, this kinda nullifies the whole competition argument imo.

 

I was referring to spreading rumor without evidences or reasonable cause. something like this

 

Don't give people permanent bans for breaking the Believable Claim rule.

I find it honestly rather appalling that someone could get their entire future experience with the server snuffed out because they crack a joke about doing something that's against the rules - even if the other party it was said to would be totally aware that it's a statement made in jest or the context shows they were being facetious - just because whoever caught the offender didn't understand it to be a joke themselves.

To harshly punish someone for mentioning doing/having done something - without any sort of proof that they were truly committing such - in the exact same manner you would punish a genuine offender is frankly not any kind of justice.

I can think of two justifications for the rule: the first would be to proactively catch people making 'confessions' of having broken a rule which they try to cover up by claiming it's a joke, but then consider: why would a genuine offender randomly state their illegal actions if they know they were actually committing them? That would be shooting oneself in the foot with a bazooka, which I doubt very many people would be genuinely silly enough to do.

The second justification would be that cracking jokes about breaking rules is a waste of Staff's time and resources by turning their attention to banal things that shouldn't require such. This one I could understand requiring punishment, but I feel a temporary ban (or a warning followed up by such a ban on subsequent infraction) is more than sufficient to get the message across.

 

Curious what people think about account bans (i.e. bans on account(s) only, meaning these players are able to create a new account/character in the server) rather than full permanent bans for the arguably less dramatic infractions.

Of all the permanent bans we've issued in the last 7 years, have they really all committed offences that we have to flatly say "you as a person are no longer welcome to play on our server"?

 

Would you ban only the account on which the infraction was committed, or all accounts owned by the user?

 

Both could be viable as punishment depending on the infraction, but I was more thinking along the lines of all accounts owned by the user when I made the suggestion.

The reason I say this is because a single account ban wouldn't necessarily change the culture of how we process rule-breaking on the server as a whole, and it also opens up a lot of potential for exploitation.

I can elaborate on why I think a full account ban but not an IP/MAC ban opens new paradigms to the server, but it really all boils down to giving a proportion of people a second chance. In the spirit of leniency and acknowledging that we all make mistakes, I think this will ultimately be a positive change if it were introduced.

 

What i dont understand is, we banning People for Harrasment and provoking language. (Which can be easily missunderstood)

But we only blacklisting scammers, with bulletproof evidence?
Which are trying to hurt other players, in a malicous way...

If i have to think about this, you dont want to deal with the Drama which can happen often with Scammers and more...
Why we care then about provoking language?
This should be no Kindergarten imo...

 

Permanently ban any accounts that were deemed "given an advantage" and give a shorter, non permanent user ban duration so they know not to do it anymore. It'll suck for people because some cases might get the users account banned, but it's still better than a life sentence.

 

Sorry for reviving this thread as I don't feel like making a new thread just for a minor feedback.

This is regarding the MapleRoyals Game Terms and Condition thread and the Glitch Abuse thread.

For new players that just join Royals and starting to familiarize with the environment, my take is that most that spend some time reading will go through the MapleRoyals Game Terms and Condition thread to understand the rules and regulation. However, the details about the Glitch Abuse is located within another sub-thread, some of them might not be informed about the details of it until pointed out by veteran players or further exploring the forum by their own.

I'm of the opinion to attach a link within the terms and condition content to direct readers to the sub-thread for better visibility. Hopefully this will increase new players awareness (at least a bit for those that read) regarding the details of glitch abuse and make better conscious effort to avoid triggering the abuse.

 

This.

1. Account Sharing - The act of sharing the use your account, sharing account information with any other individual, or the act of logging into or otherwise using an account owned by another person, with or without permission, regardless of whether or not the information was directly or indirectly shared. Please be aware that, in some cases as per discretion of Staff, we reserve the right to respond with a less harsh punishment. See Appendix for more information.

I believe that account sharing should be divided into two types: Minor and Major.
Minor, if it found 1st time sharing and the offender hasn't done any other Major Infraction, be that RWT, Vote Abuse, Haxxx or whatever else thats permabanana
Punishment: First offense 6 months. Second Offense. Permanent ban on the account being shared. Not permanent ban as a player as the benefit of gaining unfair advantage over others is completely nullified when the account is terminated anyways. You may as well take into consideration other things like if the player is new to the server, the players native language is not English and struggles to communicate in the forums in English, I know not knowing the rules is not an excuse for breaking the rules but I also don't think new players sharing account when they haven't done anything else besides that would warrant a permaban. In other words minor if the player's only offense is account sharing and hasn't done anything else besides that.

Major, if the offender has done a major infraction that warrants Permaban, be that RWT, Vote Abuse, Haxxx or whatever else.
Punishment: Permanent ban.

Another thing is that not every family/household has many PC for many players to access. Sometimes people share PC and they may mistake multiclienting 2 different accs as account sharing or they could simply log in in friends house and show/give him stuff for simplicity sake, since technically multiclienting on 2 differents account owned by 2 different people does not imply that you are giving them your login credentials. I think that in these specific instances Account Sharing can something be ambiguous where for example: I as a player can leave my char chalkboarding on FM and let someone else play with his other account while I'm not in the PC, providing they don't use my client to gain any sort of advantage. Again this is a very specific cirmcumstancial case but when I was younger there was only one PC and we were 3 brothers and we had to share the same PC way back to play GMS. I assure you this is the case for families with low resources that can't afford every PC for every member in the house who also happens to play Royals.

I also have to say that I recently helped a spanish friend by explaining her the rules after she asked me to share her account. I must note that while she indeed passed the Well-Behaved Child Medal by herself without any help according to her, she insisted on giving away her account to me so I had to tell her the rules in Spanish because it was obvious she didn't understand a thing. For those who think passing Well-Behaved Child does not necessarily imply you know or understood the rules. You are not being empathic towards foreign non-English speakers when you tell them "Oh, you are outside Maple Island, there's no way you'd not know the rules". Since I insist, in order to play the game you don't need a forum account. Then again I don't feel like reporting everybody just because they want to share their account, instead tell them in their native language that isn't allowed and most will reply: "Oh, I didn't know that wasn't allowed, sorry to ask about that". Not that it happens everytime, but it does happen. Hell even I helped someone else from another guild just because the dude was stuck in Maple Island and this dude was wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy before the Well-Behaved Child Medal requirement was implemented in order to get out of Maple Island. This foreign leniency rule should only be applied towards minor infractions and I think account sharing if the player geniunely does not know that the ToS forbids that. For other major infractions such as Game Hacking, RWT, full permaban should always be the thing regardless of language barrier.

 

The Glitch Abuse thread has been linked in the Appendix to the Terms & Conditions. Thank you for the suggestion!

 

Remove ip/Mac/person/house/work ban from people with not harmful offenses (account sharing mules/rwt jokes/minor vote abuse)
Remove perms ban to people who vote abuse by ignorance of the rules (not including people that actually knew they were breaking a rule or real world trading with votes) and just ban all of their accounts + temp ip ban.

 

How do you know whether if the player is intentionally or unintentionally vote abusing? There is no way to find out