Disclaimer: I don't want to be banned, permanently or otherwise. I like Maple very much, and can usually control myself. Please don't ban me; thank you. I assume it has to do with people changing their minds, then incessantly begging for an unban. In the same way that people "quit," then come back a few months later; perhaps there's a flawed sense of what permanence really is.
It's as you said - when this was a thing, people would request permanent self-bans and regret it afterwards. 6 months is a very long time, it's (almost) like requesting a permanent ban as players tend to lose their taste for the game as they get accustomed to other things in life. The limit makes it so that once the ban period expires if a player really wanted to play again, request another 6 month ban, or forget the game altogether, they're free to make that choice.
Here's a thought: give permanent bans upon request, but include a forum ban so that they can't come back and beg to be unbanned. If they're that serious about getting away from Royals, they don't need to be hanging out on the forums, being reminded of what they gave up. If they want to keep interacting with their friends and guildies, e-mail and WhatsApp exist.
I had the same questions as you when I first learned about this self-requested ban policy, and my immediate thought was "people should be responsible for controlling themselves and not have to rely on self-requested bans—which is ultimately a waste of Staff time." But then I figured that administering self-requested bans would probably be less of a headache for Staff than dealing with players who purposely hack the server to get themselves banned. And I can only imagine the clown fiesta that would ensue from irreversible permanent bans with a Forum ban attached lol. I just get the sense that like all the other procedures in this server that are seemingly nonsensical, the current practice on self-requested bans is also just one of those procedures that are optimized for minimal bullshit that the Staff will potentially have to put up with down the road.
lol if people were trynna get perm ban I dont get why they bother requesting it... all they have to do is smega s>eq for real life cash
