General Ban appeals are a meme and need a clear rework.

Understood, but when I mentioned more staff? That does not just mean one specific role in the staff team (I'm currently not mentioning interns or as such, but more serious roles of course), that would also include the non constrained availabe tools that could become available for either some in the current staff team or new ones that join that team who are WELL qualified for that post.

Yes I was indeed mentioning an in game event, and I'm maybe starting to see the diverge of our viewpoints about this, because I can't comment on your case (I have no info, nor it is required for me since i'm just a player but I'll kindly look at it out of curiosity if you don't mind, I do have compassion you know). But the reason why I stated that specific comment maybe, is because they are people just like us. Insane pressure by the community won't help them get further in the progress of what they are working on, but I imagine you did understand that when you mentioned my empathy towards the GMs. Just like in every day life, you could compare it to a lot of every day life experiences as well. I guess we could leave that as a side note or something something because the topic remains about the ban appeals if I understood your meaning. But also stated it for the lack of respect by some players towards the staff who can be just as hurt or even more actually, because where as any individual in this game can have their own appeal that hurts them for a long time. Staff member can get that just as well ingame OR on forum, considering that obviously there's a huge number difference between the player count and the staff count. So 50 - 100+ people going at one staff member from their misunderstanding, difference of opinion or maybe even a good reason if the player is innocent but the huge amount of people going at one particular staff member because of the ongoing ban appeal that has not been finished dealing with? nah. They are human just like us, staff position doesn't change that or doesn't make them gods. So imagine putting your every effort to fix or deal with the problem at hand, and you just get a huge bunch of negativity just because people are having a different opinion whereas they have a job to do to maintain the server, deal with a bunch of ongoing issues and can even have so little time to enjoy the game themselves.
People who are serious don't talk badly towards the staff in general when they have to prove their innocence. But everything else that's said ingame, inbox, DMs, PMs. As if some of them aren't heard.. Staff isn't stupid, there have been many cases where the individual keeps on going and going and going on and on with what would seem as solid evidence and yet the truth still reveals itself eventually. And liars aren't uncommon either, specially those who are talented at it who make their job MUCH MORE DIFFICULT.

That part I do agree with, which is why I agreed in the first place to give also my vote on the feedback. The only opinion I have for that is for WELL qualified staff members (some) to have a bit more control over that OR change things about the system. But that is totally up to Matt to decide I imagine. And my opinion about that is probably irrelevant.

Nice one on the unbanning yourself comment. But you created already this thread and a lot of people are already voting etc. I'd be very surprised if this thread was not even responded to by staff. It just seems very very unlikely since a lot of the community is touched by this subject.
As to their priorities, I'm not one to question that. We are not staff, what is between staff and their job wise will remain between staff. Where one person can imagine that they're just hanging out or taking too much time, they could be fixing a very serious issue which we would not know about and yet it could destroy much much more if they weren't working on it. Hense my idea about promoting WELL qualified staff member(s). Giving more possibility to deal with ongoing ban appeals.

Of course I understand you are not me. And frankly from my personal opinion, I'm glad you aren't. I'd be surprised anyone could handle my 24/7 brain.
But still it goes with the response above, I'm not amongst staff members, so I can't question the wait even if I got impatient for instance. But the wait of the responses etc and the right to reply more frequently. I totally agree, it does need some kind of change.
I did say that I can't question it, because I wouldn't know why but I can't assume either. But yes, maybe the responses should be a bit more thorough and more compassionate, until the person of course is found guilty by solid proof, in which case that individual has no more rights given the ToS and honestly well in those cases good riddens.

No offense taken, none what so ever. The hours a person plays does not matter to me. You could play 24/7, 5 days a week and it still wouldn't make a difference between one or the other player. Everyone has their own lives, and if they already put max of their time they can to the game, I consider them active and hardcore. My first character was a shadower 2016 (deleted by my past frustration about actually the server if you can believe but that was a long time ago), and I made him 120 solo in 2 weeks max while funding him. He's gone now and recreated as a new character. Difference now is, is my mindset has changed indeed yes. But that's not something to compare. I'm not better than you in any way as a human.

Agreed with the first two but not the last two. The last two I can't personally believe that much, even if at times it seems that way. But I did mention earlier about staff members not to be mentioned, either because they've gotten demoted or banned due to their "job". Someone applies for the post, there's a reason why I put it each time in capital letters. WELL qualified staff members. There definitely have and can be staff members who are not maybe doing their job correctly. But all that, well I mean who highers them? It's up to them to make that hard decision, which I can't even imagine, given how serious a staff position is or is supposed to be if you would like.

I'm not sure if you're hinting about a specific staff member, but if that is the case, then why worry? Everyone knows Matt is sweating his behind off for this server to keep it running, if there's a trouble maker amongst staff. They will be demoted eventually. But that is up to him to decide, figure out and deal with it. And since the server means so much to him I mean 10 years.... so why would he want a trouble maker in his team? I'd give it time if that was the case because that reflects on the entire community and not just ban appeals.

The "do it yourself" was not that serious really, I was just mentioning the past really about the new source which in my opinion was ridiculous. Only these days I realize how ridiculous it is, because I frankly am so thankful for the new source and even more changes since I came back recently. But I remember hearing very nasty stuff about that subject back then. And that was just completely unnecessary. Why come out with the new source flawed completely? and not give it time and work it better and better before releasing it. Yes there were still issues after it came out, but would of been worse if people forced it to come out even earlier.

Patience is lost a lot in the game, but it doesn't mean that no one cares.

I am truly sorry if my thoughts or opinions offended someone, I'm just letting my mind express itself if you will.
If you are innocent and have spent so much of your time on the game, I do sincerely hope that there will be light upon this issue and not just yours but everyone included in that category.

Meanwhile, I do wish you all much happiness and love, regardless of how difficult the game issues may seem at the moment maybe in a specific way to people like this ban appeal issue for instance. But I don't know.. I truly want to give the benefit of the doubt to everyone really. Not to jump to conclusions too fast, and even if I do, I always hope I realize them soon enough.

I do hope for the people concerned that the staff will respond with what they truly have to say about this with complete honesty and sincerity.

And again, please please please try not to take my words with TOO much grain of salt. I'm only human and express myself as I can.

 

The way the ban appeal process is handled has been an issue for a while now. Most of the issue stems from the fact that many appeals can only be handled by Tim which creates a huge bottleneck in the workload required, and we've been dealing with this bottleneck for years now. It doesn't make sense how much this server relies on Tim's work here - ideally the server in general should be able to progress in any and every way without any one specific staff member. If something were to happen that would cause Tim to be unable to continue work as a staff member for a period of time, what would happen to Royals? Is staff prepared at all if a situation like this were to occur? Personally I only see 2 viable solutions for this:

1. More admins
This speaks for itself, more admins opens up the bottlenecked workload to multiple people with the ability to actually do something. While this would be great, I personally don't see it happening any time soon with how picky and rare admin selection is, and I understand not being able to trust just anyone with having this much access to the entire database/code. However, I would hope that we eventually do see some more admins for this server.

2. Allow GM's partial and secure database access
I feel like this is the better and more realistic solution, although I don't know the details of how feasible this is to do. This could be given to only selected GM's, maybe a new staff role that is somewhat between GM and Admin. Access should be given to chat logs, trade logs, store logs, etc. - as well as any other things that could assist them with performing a full investigation with conclusive evidence.

I would love to see both these things done. If neither is done, I don't expect anything to change.

It would be nice to hear from staff if they are at least interested in changing the way they handle things in this regard, or if they plan to just keep going the way they're going. I remember hearing about "GM tools" years ago, but clearly that hasn't done enough to change things. There is still far too much dependence on Tim.

 

I absolutely agree, this much work on only one staff member? It's insane given how much there is to deal with. And agree absolutely about the selection of the umm.. permissions to certain of the staff members. I understand completely why the selection is that complicated specially when it comes to a server this big and the risk of selection just as well.

 

I was answering you here: the staff have their hands full constantly aside from their personal life. The more help there is to fix an issue, the faster it will be
Perhaps i did misunderstand you but you said that they have their hands full and that the more help there is, the faster so i assume you were talking about adding more staff members.

And here: I feel like there should be more staff members (carefully selected obviously!)
This one is clear tho.

The thing is that from the looks of it, there won't be new admins any soon and GM as it stands right now is pretty much a very limited position, so i assume that adding new staff means GMs but in any other case you should be taking of promoting anyone from the current staff into a higher position to ease admin workload or granting the rest of the staff the ability to ease the workload.

Link but you should just take a peek over the ban appeal section and see that i am not biased towards my very specific case here.

Thick skin is required in any sort of job where you have to catter to people specially on the internet, nobody saying is easy but if you do not have the qualities tho you shouldn't exactly get into that sort of role, specially here where you are volunteering yourself.

Last, either if an individual is innocent or not, it does not bode well to see how appeals are handled currently thus the need for a change.

But its known that the problem is how the tasks are handled, that's not a secret.
GMs do have their hands tied for most stuffs, hence i don't go that hard at them here except for the serious lack of empathy and the apparent unwillingness to push for a change (now this is my assumption but there's no reason for me not to think this way)

While Matt doesn't seem to review any bans asides from the occasional paypal chargeback, he's at fault as well since he's the server owner aka the head in all of this.
Things have to be clear but let's not hold ourselves anymore, the bottleneck is Tim as Minty said.

No, i never meant anything as a person but the time you spend on your hobbies generally do reflect the level of involvement you have with said hobbie.
Let's try to equate it to i wouldn't give a fuck if i had to get a ban in Cs GO (something that i have been playing lately) due to abandoning competitive matchmaking (if any of you reading this comment do play the game please do not come at me with pitchforks, i haven't done it kekw just an example pls) i would be able to wait for said ban to expire without breaking a sweat because i am not that engaged with the game, i like it but i am a very casual player.

Now if i were a daily player pouring hours and hours into competitive and i was to receive a MM ban i would be fuming because i wouldnt be able to join my team/etc blablabla.

Point taken, i understand.

Sometimes people is justified and i think i am, but i don't know if they care because i am not omniscient hence i have to go with what's known and there's no care being shown.

No need to be sorry you are speaking your mind and so i am.
Well i am going to say the obvious i am innocent and you or whoever read this might believe i am not, so that's not the point to argue here but thank you for your sincere wishes towards me and others experiencing this problem.

Again, don't worry all good.

 

I think ban appeal is too cruel to innocent locked players, I hope its operation process can be reconsidered, and I think players who are locked by mistake should get some compensation
sth like this

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/oh-boii.127670/page-2#post-745582

 

can u show me other ban appeal that matt give compensate? thank u

 

There are a few that are quite recent.

 

The compensation they get is Frederick taxing 1% everyday from their closed shop

 

Agreed in a way, let's not underestimate the services of our dear old friend Frederick.

 

https://royals.ms/forum/threads/id-that-has-been-deleted-or-blocked-from-connection.211400/
Banned for RWT suspicion, the first half of the thread is a GM mistaking what this ban is about (fortunately that only took 1 day) and the second half of the thread is Tim asking questions at the usual rate of 1 per month on average.
The appeal lasted from November 21st to May 24th and ended with "you should be able to login again now!", I don't see any mention of a compensation there though.
The only thing missing in that last reply from Tim is a "happy mapling!" to truly show the disrespect for that player after wrongfully banning him for half a year lmao.

The way the ban appeals are handled is definitely a joke.

 

Ban Appealer #1150: -Perfect gear/money from retired friend-
...
Ban Appealer #6862: -Perfect gear from retired friend- -loan -loan
...
Ban Appealer #9137: -Perfect gear from retired friend- -loaned gear from friend- -loan- -loan -loan

 

Honestly the countless loans and retired/quitting friends stuff is insane just as well. And your post makes it quite clear. So as staff how much can you rely on to claims like "got them from a friend" without making a thorough research about it if the value of funds is much more than just great. If that's the case, you need solid proof of that and the waiting will be longer because that's not that easy to figure out if the individual does not have sufficient evidence about it or worse when it's not even logical. (This of course is not said about people who actually are honest about it) But point being is that, figuring it out, becomes complicated at this point I would definitely imagine. This comment was for the whole concept, not regarding any ban appeal I've seen or could see.

 

Just because the community labels a person as innocent or guilty, does not mean that, that person is innocent or guilty... There is evidence behind the scenes that others do not see that validates a person's ban. Unfortunately, you'll just have to take my word for it, but I hold no reason to lie.

What game doesn't actively seek player retention? Why do you think MapleRoyals is working to become less and less HP wash oriented?

You're incorrect here. In most instances, multiple staff members have all viewed a ban appeal and will give their input on the issue. ESPECIALLY if the ban is controversial. So the idea of "staff" as 1 person, isn't correct. "Staff" consists of multiple people, with all of their eyes separately viewing a situation and providing input. There is no one singular person making every decision.

To give some insight without too much information. I can also attest to the fact that when speaking about new content within staff chat, the admins have openly asked "Okay so what does everyone want this content to achieve? Solo/party? Mesos / EXP? Length of time? Difficulty? Rewards?" There's a lot of information to digest when reading multiple people's feedback and responses. My point here is to show that there "is" a system in place to fight for you, and that "is" Staff.

In a ban appeal, you only need to provide the truth. If you're guilty, then you know you're guilty. But if you're innocent, then explaining what happened logically shouldn't be difficult. I speak from experience.

Is it fair that there are only two administrators in the world, that are able to verify critical information required to validate whether a ban was justified or not?

No, it's not. But unfortunately being given the privileges of being an administrator requires a "lot" of trust. I've been told before that, being an administrator, with 1 misclick of a button, you can shut down the entire server. I don't think "logically" that administrative privileges should be given out lightly. I "wish" it was easier to give other people access to the information that they need, without giving them "too much" information. But that takes time and money to develop which Royals "is" working on and has been working on.

What's truly unfortunate, is how underappreciated people like Tim and Matt are, for genuinely taking their time to look into thousands upon thousands of threads. But guess what. I can actually attest to the fact that every single case is individually given the time it deserves "when" the administrator is taking the time on it. But two administrators can only do so much. And they never give up or stop moving forward, they just keep doing what they do.

So I'm sorry some people receive 1 response per month. But for a private server, run by volunteers, and 2 administrators, this server is doing pretty damn well if I say so myself, and more people should be grateful for the admins taking the time they do to respond to everything they do. Which is so much more than just ban appeals.

I'm sorry that you feel the way you currently do, but I hope I've helped a little bit to shed some light on the topic.

Feel free to ask any questions or let me know if I could better clarify on something I said! Thanks for taking your time to read.

 

Gianni got compensation. https://royals.ms/forum/threads/ban-appeal.212238/

 

Thanks , but what he got ?

 

Banned for less then a month, got got compensation
I was banned for almost 4 months, got absolutely nothing

 

So thats my take on it
The ban appeals work properly like 98% of the time. Some strays do get caught in the crossfire, but other than that they work.
The issue is that because of the 98% of the appeals, the actually innocent ones get scrutanized and distrusted.
For example, i fully believe my friend DiscoStuYE is innocent, yet his appeal was slogging over for over a year, with sometimes months between staff replies that would only be "its not enough evidence" without even telling him what evidence he does need.
I remember back in like 2020-2021 when i was quitting for the first time i warned him "you need to take screenshot of literally every trade you do, literally any drop, any item you make, even if its only 25-50m value"
And he laughed and said "nah, the server has a good appeal system, you just need to record the BIG items
I was with him on discord daily, even when i wasnt playing actively, while he farmed that stupid bow. I ce back to the game to sell leech and give him white scrolls to scroll it, i gave him every dragon soul and scale i got to help relief his cost of making that item, because he's been one of my best friends for about 1/3 of my life now, and it got him banned. To this day he's not sure what evidence he still needed to get, if thats even possible, since he did document a ton.
In this server you literally have to document everything even if youre innocent, that feels like being a criminal at that point. And just to clarify i dont mean it makes you feel like being a criminal, it makes you feel guilty and paranoid, always looking behind your back, always gathering evidence. Cause when staff suspects you its YOUR responsibility to prove yourself innocent. In what civilized society is the judicial system like that, where innocent people always have to feel chased and scared of the "guilty until proven innocent"?

 

ppl come and go, life is unfair, suck it up and move on~

 

This is what happens when you invest too much of your time into this game that could theoretically get shut down at anytime , should’ve just played casually