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

RIP Extalia

 

I do obviously know that the community does not decide if someone is either innocent or not but what i mean is obvious, once you are banned your reputation while being banned is tarnished and hence you can be branded as either guilty or innocent by this community regardless of what you are.

This server obviously does not care about any player retention when it comes to bans, we are disposable and the treatment that players that are appealing shows and perhaps why does that happen?
Because the server has a decent influx of new players and that's what the HP quests cater to (yeah, yeah, everyone can do the quests from newbies up to veterans to save on hp washing or fix characters without the hp to boss around, etc but let's not delude ourselves the point is that Royals has a reputation among the private server community due to hp washing that discourages potential new players and as a server that is unfriendly due to said washing so this player retention you speak of does cater mostly towards keeping that healthy influx of players)
With that influx of new players, one or two or three players appealing bans are disposable.

Hold on, hold on real quick.
Its quite known that Mr. Tim handles my kind of ban alone, but let's take your version for granted then which one it is?
1month/reply ratio because Tim is the bottleneck and the one in charge for the majority of the stuff that truly matters or the Staff (aka "multiple people") allowing this 1month/reply ratio go on?
Please enlighten me.

I am merely speaking about the ban and not how the server staff does conduct themselves in debating and implementing further content or general management, Royals wouldn't hold #1 if said management was truly shit in every area.

So again, i talk about banned folks like me, who's out there able to talk with me?
Is there anyone that cares about me within the staff?
Is there anyone that can clarify my doubts and would talk in an official manner with me?
In that sense, nobody is fighting for me and if i weren't making this fuss or continue appealing my ban nobody would give a fuck in the staff, in fact it would be labeled as OP loss interest (inb4 OP is guilty) and be closed.

From the moment you get banned, with the general lack of care you get, the feeling is: me vs the staff. (Frankly its me vs Tim) nothing else.

I've been confident and i am confident that i'll be unbanned regardless of what you or anyone in this community might believe.
But you know what's the problem?
Being banned for 3 months+ and getting an answer once a month like i stated multiple times, that's total disrespect.

This server is literally celebrating its 10th anniversary.
Plenty of time to address and work towards changes, personally there's no pity left in me regardless of their exceptional work keeping the server alive, etc.
Being a volunteer does not excuse any individual from not being held accountable nor up to any standards.

Thank you even if we clash.

 

Pretty much, but there are moments where people does have to stand up and not simply take bullshit down their throats.

Definitely... If only i could send this message back in time.

 

I would like to know if players are atleast being compensated when theyre found innocent. I really hope when someone gets falsely banned and they spend weeks and sometimes months, answering all the staffs questions in a calm and timely fashion and are eventually found to be completely innocent, that someone on staff is atleast reimbursing those players for that time falsely banned. Be it RP, exp/drop coupons or what have you. You'd certainly be taking some criticism off yourselves

If youre not.....well hey have some feedback on what you could do to players that are falsely banned to re earn some of that trust and loyalty from the player

 

Not in direct response to any individual, but just based more generally of patterns here and other conversation about the issue of unfair bans...

Players can say whatever they like, and yet staff have to show restraint in order to be professional and protect the server. Players can play innocent knowing damn well they are guilty, but the staff cannot share the evidence because that could be used to the advantage of future rule breakers. So the community thinks there are a lot more innocent people than there are.

In an ideal world, nobody would be unfairly banned. And there would be a process that made it 'easy' for innocent people to get unbanned. But this is just not realistic. From a staff perspective, the vast majority of banned players are guilty, and yet they relentlessly deny it despite overwhelming evidence against them. I know this, because some staff members have mentioned it on the forum/ shoutbox, and I am not a conspiracy theorist that would accuse awesome people like Becca or Kenny, for example, of lying in this regard.

Also in an ideal world, players would not act like it is terrible that they were told to apply common sense and not make trades with dodgy people. At least where I'm from (New Zealand), this is how the real world works. If you buy a second-hand car that was actually stolen, the police will take it. You will not get compensation from them or the government - the only way you might get your money back is taking the seller to court. If they don't have money to pay you back though (they won't have money), then you are out of luck. Similar with other stuff like computers and electronic goods - if you find an 'amazing' deal in a Facebook selling group and it turns out that item was stolen from somebody else and the cops find out, then you are out of luck. If they have reason to believe that you knew (or should have known) that the goods were stolen, then there could be further consequences as well. I can imagine that from a staff perspective, it's very difficult to make judgement calls about who was genuinely innocent and who kinda knows they are doing something dodgy but will deny it.

When I quit GMS back in 2012 or so, it was an absolute shithole because of the inflation and hackers. If the staff all just took a step back and stopped banning people, then Royals would look the same way. And then everybody would be complaining about that.

But for the tiny number of players who actually are unfairly banned, here is some advice (this is only going to work if you are innocent). As a few people already know, I was a major 'behind the scenes' support person of one of the players who was ultimately unbanned on Royals and got compensation. It is highly likely that if you have been banned unfairly, you are going to be very emotional about it all. This is difficult because it is extremely important that you stay calm, explain things clearly, give full details, and avoid telling any lies that you think might simplify the process (they won't). I recommend talking with good mentors/ friends about it and getting them to check over your posts before you post them. It is extremely important to try and think of how the staff are seeing things, and to not get angry and upset at them - that will not help your cause. The person I assisted is a very logical and well-grounded person, but because the situation upset them so much, I had to recommend a lot of editing and rewording to keep the posts professional and objective. I can imagine that if that staff had made it into the posts, then it would not have helped that person's cause. Of course that's unfair, but it's just the way the world works and there is no great solution to it.

I don't think much needs to change, though. There are few 'realistic' changes that could be made, other than trying to hire more staff and perhaps giving read-only database access to more staff. My fingers are crossed that the current seemingly good staff member candidate for admin is ultimately made an admin. And a clear compensation policy would be good.

Spoiler

Yeah I know I'll get a lot of hate for this. And before any forum peasants accuse me, I am not sucking up to anybody. I am just a casual player who enjoys Royals when I have time. And I think a lot of players take this game far too seriously, and act too entitled about it. Also some players seem to forget they are not 'customers', and so don't have rights related to that.

 

Players should not be getting banned over speculations and suspicions.

Players should only be banned for what they're reported for, not finding some stain in the past to make sure the ban sticks. Like why? It seems almost as if staff is determined into making sure someone who is reported is guilty OF SOMETHING, ANYTHING.
So, a player gets reported based off speculations of rwting, staff check, oh look, vote abused 7 years ago, case closed, don't need to check for rwt! What is that man? Are you guys really gonna ignore the fact that that same player has abided by the rules for 5-6 years after she learnt to respect the rules? Isn't that the whole point of having rules in the first place? So people can grow from their mistakes and learn to respect the rules and the server? But staff would rather appease the reporter weaponizing the report system even though the person is innocent of what she's being accused of.

Also, why are bans inconsistent? In one appeal, staff frees a player from major vote abuse, and in another, staff digs out vote abuse from 7 years ago just to tell the reporter "I can't ban her for RWT (because there's literally none? i can bet my entire gear set for this), but i can ban her for vote abuse!". Where's the consistency in that?

What you guys are doing (staff), is encouraging a toxic witch hunt culture. Players WILL weaponize that because everyone is a human being with human emotions to hate someone, regardless of whether any rule breaking has taken place, having only just to be sure the report is compelling enough to get staff's attention and pray that there's something from the past to make the ban stick. It doesn't even matter if your report is made entirely out of conjecture.

Sorry eng for bombarding your thread like that, but i felt there were parallels between your case and refine's case.

 

The purpose of rules is to make the server sustainable, and a place that everybody can co-exist without too much drama I thought...
We're all mostly adults here, who should all be more than capable of simply following the rules.

I do kinda agree that it sucks when somebody is banned years later for vote abuse. Although it's Matt's server and his rules, and I guess that those who historically vote abused need to know that by continuing to play the server, they are accepting the risk of getting banned at any time.

 

Don't worry we both know how it is.

 

instead of draconian-like punishment, why not a reformative punishment? Players can change. What would convey a better message for the public?

A) Players that have vote abused in the past having to look over their shoulders and have fear of getting banned any day without no mercy, (i feel like this group would be more prone to breaking more rules tbh "if i go down, might as well go down swinging" )
OR
B) Players that have vote abused in the past or are still actively vote abusing, seeing that it's not pointless to change and start being a rule-abiding player.

 

How is that fair on players who were caught for vote abusing and banned for it, though? The rules clearly state no vote abusing. Is it really that difficult?

 

So, this player gets a free pass, while refine has her vote abuse history from 7 years ago dug up and issued a perma ban and that's fair?

Also, the context matters, what is happening is really,

refine was reported for "money laundering", which she's innocent of, so the court decides to look into her past and sentence her to death for stealing candies from a shop when she was 10 years old.

She is a victim of a meticulous and targeted witch hunt. I don't know how else to say it.

 

Threads like these always makes me sad, even more so from a friend.

I do not pretend to know the inner workings of the Royals admin. But people are the same everywhere you go, really. If they were capable of change, it would've happened already. Whatever motivation they have of greasing the wheels of the false ban torture box far exceeds their nonexistent concerns for the player base, for all that their lip service might claim otherwise.

I'm not saying give up, because you'll probably be unbanned in like 3 months but like...

Yeah, it's just sad.

 

You went around the server asking advice on how to petty report me to the point 5 different people came to tell me about it... what are you here virtue signaling for?

 

My good friend @Gridlock pmed me in game bcs he wanted to talk with me.
He was worried about getting progress and even playing this game bcs of massive wave of weird RWT bans.
He's legit player who makin his progress with his own hands and what led me to conclusion tf is wrong with this whole ban appelas situation that normal players are scared to getting progress or even just playing game.
I think when somone is accusing u of something its their job to prove u break the rules. There wholes bans based over speculations and suspicions are mistake.
(sorry for english, ty)

 

So I might aswell give my view onto this. Recently joined MapleRoyals, probably been a member once before but couldn't remember the details. Great server and all.
I see no reason for RWT and I agree that it's a problem that needs firm handling. HOWEVER, recently I've had guildmembers /friends poppin up in ban appeals and I've been told others to "document" my progress (scrolling, trades and gachas etc.). That's honestly alot of work since I don't have a scroll lock key on my laptop (lol) so i can't easily SC every single thing. And do I really have to download a 3rd party program to record my stuff or whatever, the whole "you need to document", this is Maplestory, Not the IRS, or am mistaken? I have nothing to hide but like @Chuyaasenpai33 says, I would like a clearification about how the bans work at least. If I now have a soild set of gear and have gotten 3 WS past 4 weeks of saving NX, Do I really have to prove it all by my own logging? It would be more of a punch if the administrative proves the accused guilty with evidence.

This is just a thought, Don't feel like playing if I have to document every meso or NPC i make. and If I have to, shouldn't it be a Royaltip or in the maple island-criteria...

would've liked to know this before i made it to 150 lol... It is after all my time being spent. If this is a rule, it has completely swooped over my head, sorry.

/Best regards
From Jindu Aka Sly

 

While were at it, why isnt there a built in option to automatically screenshot every scroll you do maybe only ones involving non trash items, or including ws/cs to prevent spam by dummy scrolling?
Other games have built in options to automatically screenshot anything you choose basically, boss kills, trades, drops, levels
Have the dev team do the work *once* (yeah its a lot of work) to automatically save it on their servers go through each item that is scrolled often ie red craven, concerto, all the gloves etc
And have it save in a folder related to the account.
That way, if a player claims to scroll the item himself, devs can do *their own* due diligence instead of the player. Or heaven forbid, do it before banning him in the first place.

 

I've always wondered why it's ban first ask questions later. Some staff make it out to seem like that have a lot of information lots of times, then the real proof comes out and it makes it seem like it could be one of a few things: 1) any report = guaranteed ban, which makes those rash people that will report people out of jealousy get exactly what they want by removing a player through making up false claims, or just saying "they have tons of commonly rwt'd items" (which is odd considering most people dont keep raw mesos and instead mass CS/WS/wa gears guess that makes every top player "sus"). 2) Why does it seem like our main person handling ban appeals isn't really a member of the community other than admin duties seeing as it's very well known Solsticio has been leeching for 8+ hours a day for a very long time yet in the appeal it's like they haven't played the game in years and seen her endless smega's selling leech during all hours 3) maybe the amount of people who have access to ban someone exceeds the amount of people to solve appeals meaning maybe theres too much freedom towards banning players given to certain GM's seeing how lackluster it is to get a response for appeals these days, but there shouldn't be a form of avoidance and favoritism shown on the ban appeals either.

leads to a question of if anyone were to report someone rich stocking up for an auf helm or something are they getting banned quite easily or is there specific players who's reports are forwarded to the top of the admin list?

lets say a player was competitive with someone and saw that they were getting more rich and they were feeling especially toxic and decided to report them out of spite. if the system is just report = ban, then I guess what I'd also like to know is are people being penalized for false reports? if not then this system just promotes to report anyone richer than you in hopes they don't have evidence to protect themselves or are too shy to make a ban appeal.

 

I reckon what it is is that they genuinely have very good reason to suspect the person is guilty. There are of course alternate possible explanations for unusual patterns. That is why there is a ban appeal process. Occasionally it turns out people are actually innocent.

We as players do not know why the staff are asking the questions they are. The questions are probably a mix of questions that can easily determine whether or not the person is going to be honest as they can be verified, and ones where the staff might indeed have to trust the player a bit. This is just basic detective work. Best thing the person appealing the ban can do is to just be honest and answer all questions truthfully. And if this is not possible because they actually are guilty, then they should just grow up and quit this game permanently. I'm glad that sometimes the staff actually are calling out players on their bullshit lies - e.g. that ban appeal earlier where the player made it look like Becca and Gert had banned them unfairly. Good on Gert for calling them out, and then when the bullshit kept coming, Matt showed up to call out more of it. It is unfortunate that they cannot just truth bomb everybody in ban appeals and be done with it. Obviously they can't, because the information shared would give too much insight into how they detect rule breaking behaviour, and bad actors would abuse this.

On a number of occasions, there have been 'popular' members of this community who have been involved in lengthy ban appeals with a whole bunch of people jumping up and down screaming about how that person would never break the rules and must be innocent. And then eventually, after a ton of staff time has been wasted and the staff have been made to look terrible for it, the person either finally admits it, or the staff finally do share the overwhelming evidence just to make the bullshit stop.

Do not underestimate how tempting things like selling via RWT can be to people who are quitting and would like some serious rl cash. Or how much addiction (e.g. to royals gambling, like scrolling) can drive otherwise reasonable people to do crazy things like purchasing mesos for real money or vote abusing. People try to cover up and hide their addictions and bad behaviours from those around them. In the real world, it is more difficult for them to do so successfully, because the people around them can physically see them, etc. In the 2D mushroom game, it would be pretty easy for somebody to hide the behaviour from those around them, but not from the staff who actually have access to logs, etc. And just by its very nature, this game is going to attract a lot of people who are somewhat more likely than average to behave badly due to addictions. It's all about dopamine.

Perhaps the number of 'high profile' players getting banned isn't that unexpected. There is always going to be some due to addiction etc.

 

With the huge player pool that Royals has, the staff at times need to double think that logic doesn't always follow what they know, nobody is omniscient.
Patterns are broken from time to time, there's no rule that tells you which way should everyone play the game (besides the T.O.S) one can agree that after experimentation, trial and error the playstyle has been maxed and all the optimal paths here are known, however there's always unorthodox ways and that wouldn't obviously mean "guilty" a narrow mind does not help.

There are quite a few cases where people have been wrongly banned, no more than the ones rightfully convicted but certainly it should be worrying to some extent if you are remotely trying to be neutral with your observations, else its easier to meme around with the vote abuse, account sharing and botters.

Matt showing for ban that ain't related to paypal chargeback? I've seen it happen but it can be counted with my fingers so not exactly praise material asides the surprise.

Nothing is stopping them from doing so, even better. Would be a nice change of pacing around, stop playing games that benefits nobody, cuts the bullshit down to zero and nobody wastes their time, ain't it? But "muh secrecy" oh welp can't be helped right?
There's so much that staff can do to clear the waters yet they don't and they do not exactly need to reveal their supposed "aces" but communicate.

Perhaps some players are weaponizing bans through sketchy reports (Hello! now that you haven't seen me in game for a few months, its your life any better or are you getting acquainted with your next target by now to find some solace?) to get the ones they do not like/see as competition banned under a false morality pretense, i'll leave it at that for now because those who know, do know.

 

Do you really, truly, honestly believe that people can just get whoever they like banned by reporting them?