I've been wondering this for a while, and given the ridiculousness of this recent ban request/appeal I figured now would be as good a time as any to bring it up. I mean, it's a waste of staff time. It's not their jobs to assume responsibility over people who can't exercise self control.
Back in the day people would self-ban to avoid getting hacked when they took a long break. But now I'm noticing more and more players self-banning themselves to escape the temptation and to focus more on studies / irl things
That's fair, but personal account security also shouldn't fall under staff responsibility. Ironically enough, while researching this more it seems that I answered my own question three years ago: Still interested in hearing other people's thoughts, since I don't necessarily know if that is true.
If you want to focus on school/work you should just delete the game and quit playing. Even if you are busy there can always be a case where you get an holiday, school is suddenly cancelled, you get fired from work or you just suddenly want to login to royals and talk to your friends.
I feel like people should have the self control to be able to stop playing a game if real life situations demand it, but its really up to the staff if they want to deal with all the requests or not.
Agree, total waste of time and staff resources. I feel like I've said the same thing in the past but 2lazy2look. There is no benefit/upside that comes for the server by having our staff devote their time to self-bans, and if anything the opposite - it *guarantees* one less player for the entire duration. That said, the dude in ban appeals is going full autismo thinking that he should be unbanned.
Probably a waste of time? Yes Probably a waste of time but also occasionally generates some forum drama content? Yes
I think the idea of self bans is to be a service to enrich the player experience. It's not too different from other services like recovering accidentally deleted characters, ign or forum name changes, etc. There are two reasons a player may want to self ban to begin with. 1. Account Security: Players may have concerns about account security (especially in the days before PICs were added, there were a few cases of possible database vulnerabilities). If you are active this is less of a problem because if there was an issue you could quickly find and try to resolve it with the staff. But, if you anticipate you will not play for several months, the idea of coming back to find your gear hacked is quite worrisome. There are some instances of this happening to players, even recently (e.g. Sean/skcans). 2. Avoiding distraction: Players may be extremely busy irl (crucial exams, all nighters, etc), and find self banning for a week, month, or more is a nice way to avoid the distraction and increase their focus. It's a similar idea to not bringing a video game console, comics, or other distractions to college or simply removing distractions from your life at times you want or need to hone your focus. People's real live situations and methods are different and this shouldn't be looked down upon. If self bans were not offered it wouldn't be a problem. People would just adapt around it. Self banning is a service that occasionally results in drama or misunderstanding. For example, if a player banned himself for account security reasons because he was being deployed overseas in the military for 9 months, but then his assignment changed suddenly and he found himself wanting to play? Perhaps if he requested to unban his self banned accounts, that would be wrong out of principle of respecting the staffs' time and also to ensure the quality of the self ban service. But, what if the player simply wants to make a new account to play to pass the time and be involved in the community? That's an example of how self banning can be unclear at times, as in the past even GMs were unsure of how to handle similar situations. In the end, it's just supposed to be a service to enrich players' experiences but the full terms can occasionally be misunderstood. Some efforts have been taken to better outline the rules of self ban, such as this post made in November 2018: https://royals.ms/forum/threads/so-you-want-a-self-ban-read-here-first.131445/
Literally takes 1 minute to give points and self-ban someone (on the forum) and like 1 minute for the GM's to do whatever black magic they do on their end. As for being a waste of time, that's impossible when our free time is worthless to begin with (Futurama anyone?) The only reason that appeal dragged on and drama ensued was because I took an ill advised 5-9pm nap and missed it. lul
Spoiler: Thanks for the response. I'm also not looking to hijack the memes thread. Can you further specify what "it" is that you referring to that is not clear? Not sure your intended meaning, except possibly do you mean to say my self ban from Sep 2018 is an example of the rules posted in Nov 2018 not being clear? If that's the intended meaning which is just my only guess of what you mean and could be wrong, is it possible you are mixing up the dates? In my post you are replying to, I simply mentioned a way to improve the self ban appeal format. I said things seem fair now that there are official guidelines and I think it could be improved even more by making a new format. My intent is positive so it is possible that was misconstrued. Eh, I never suggested you to open this can of worms. Can you specify what you are referring to by the 7 months number? If you are referring to the time frame between my self ban and farewell thread, it was 2 months. I asked to be self banned starting on Sep 1, 2018. The introductions thread was actually a farewell thread posted on Nov 19, 2018 after receiving further clarification from Matt on what the self ban rules would look like in my case. Not sure where the rules of self ban were listed before Nov 17, 2018. Self banning is not even listed in the Terms and Conditions https://royals.ms/forum/threads/mapleroyals-game-terms-conditions.86769/ Before the guidelines on self bans were posted on Nov 17, 2018, everything about them required extrapolation from normal bans. The statement in the T&C that the punishment for ban evasion is "Identical to the consequence of which the player attempts to, or already has, circumvented," is open to interpretation to how it applies to self bans. For instance, if someone requested to be self banned from October 1, 20xx to December 1, 20xx but was caught ban evading, would the resulting "identical punishment" for ban evading be: A. New accounts are banned for the identical timeframe but not to exceed the original max date. B. All accounts' bans are extended to a further date [e.g. caught on November 1, then the self ban will be expanded longer until Jan 1.] If someone was to be caught for past self ban evading AFTER December 1, would they be punished further? I have screenshots from Tim, Luna, etc showing that even they were not sure how this matter would be handled and it wasn't until Matt himself made a decision on the situation that the full details were set in stone. How is it moot? From a player risk analysis, the details of the punishment for ban evading a self ban has everything to do with whether they consider playing on a new account for fun or just wait out their self ban. Not sure where else to post it. Every Neo Tokyo quest dialogue..
Personally I think recovering accidentally deleted characters should also be considered individual player responsibility and not be burdened on staff. As for IGN and forum name changes, those are offered only upon purchase of RP and so should be considered transactions rather than services. You are free to organize your life in a way that works best for you, but do you really need a GM to hold your hand through that process? It may literally take just a minute, but it also takes just one lunatic for it to take several minutes (and headaches). At the end of the day, I just think it's an unnecessary line on a giant laundry list of GM responsibilities. But you make a fair point. If I truly valued the concept of time I wouldn't waste mine away memeing on these forums.
it being your pictures- it just says are you aware of the consequences- we literally ask people if theyre aware that bans can not be reversed unless they state it first, and as I said- all bans are bans, doesnt matter if it's a self ban or a hacking ban, you shouldn't evade. Defeats the entire purpose You responded (in a meme thread, when you originally didn't even post a meme, then you posted again without a meme lol.) If you werent looking for the can of worms to be opened, you shouldn't have kept posting.. You had a self ban request in April 2018 where you stated in the original post that you are aware you cannot be unbanned early. 7 months later (in November) was the whole debacle with you wanting to come back early (rather all your feedback threads about how you wanted to come back early). One of them many people mentioned the fact that you originally requested a perm ban. It's inconsistent on a lot of levels- not just you being aware of the rules then making a whole bunch of threads about the rules later. it's moot because- like I literally said, regardless if we extend your ban or just ban new accounts till the original date- you get banned all the same. It's really not important whether a self ban gets longer bans for evading like regular bans or not, you cannot evade. period. Everything else is icing, you need to make the cake first. Again, all bans are bans. edit: I also want to reiterate, something I told you ages ago on discord (I can see the conversation), you're the first person we've had any issues with when it comes to self bans. Everyone else (hundreds of people if not more) were well aware they couldn't be unbanned early and couldn't evade, and if they didn't know- we okay after they were told. Moved for you.
Learning how to properly manage my addiction to maple while trying to be a functioning productive member of society was an important point in my life. I know this might sound weird but i learned important life skills through Maple and my addiction to it. It helped me know and look for certain triggers that would draw me to wanting to play excessively. I was able to work on them and eventually figured it out and have been able to apply some of these things to the rest of my day to day life. I can see the importance of short maybe week long max bans having a use. Asking for a ban beyond that so you can focus on important tasks may appear smart, but isnt actually helping you the human to actually learning self control. You cant just ask fot a 6 month ban for debt thats piling up due. You gotta figure out a way to deal with it and eventually you should be better suited for the futute once you do. idk im guessing this is coming off condescending but thats not entirely my goal. Managing Video game addiction while harmful to your focus on other tasks initally, is an important life skill to learn if you can do so. Long term bans does nothing in actuality to help you imo.
I think the best we can do is agree to disagree about most of these subtleties of the discussion. You have your opinion and perspective of things, I have mine. One factual error I want to clear up though is that the April 2018 self ban (which only lasted for 1 month so I could focus more on university) was completely unrelated to the November 2018 debacle of me trying to learn about the full details of being self banned. That debacle was a result of a later self ban in September 2018. Up until that point in Royals history, there was very little or even zero information about the rules of self banning. So, I didn't necessarily want to get unbanned, as I made very clear at the time. I just wanted to find out the exact rules of my situation since GMs were telling me conflicting things, some that actually conflict with the current established rules. It wasn't until Matt responded to a PM telling me the official decision on how it would be handled that I actually knew. I served out my ban fine after that with no issue. I just wanted to know what the official rules were and I had to go to the top of the entire server to get a straight answer. Also, to make the statement that the specific details of self banning or evading are moot is a subjective claim. To some it may be. But to an individual who is self banned for several months and wants to play Royals on a new account for emotional rapport from his friends, the exact details pertaining to self bans can be a very important topic.
To me, the self-ban concept is dumb The player in the linked Ban Appeal chose the duration of 5 months, which the Staff have to uphold the agreement In the situation where the player can't resist the temptation and lied about not needing the self-ban, causing a distraction, won't he just rage about unable to complete schoolwork/projects? Personally, I rather the player uninstall the game if he wishes to focus on real-life stuff such as work or studies Although I can understand the frustration the player have regarding the change of plans by the school, it is not the fault of the Staff and Gert does not deserve such disrespect If players can't even agree to the duration they have set themselves, I rather the removal of the self-ban It is not the Staff's responsibility to ensure a player able to focus on work/studies
I feel that both self ban requests and character deletion reversions are done as a courtesy. We do also limit self ban requests to 6 months just so no one can ask for a permanent ban and then go back on it later.
I think selfban request is fine, the problem here is when people agree that they understand they cannot be unbanned earlier but then they still ask for unban LOL and bother the staffs (as the link you give). Those people irl sure love to break the rules. They seems like dont understand the simple thing that, once the staffs unban them so it's break the rules, and if one person can break rules then others also can. It's not about the staffs can do the unban or not, they are just follow rules. And in the link of that selfban request, i remember he is one on the blacklist so no wonder his attitude is like shit. It's not about the selfban request but about the people you have to deal with, dumbass is always dumbass wherever he goes. However i'm always surprised how staffs can be that patient to answer them. Respect
@Evan Slightly off-topic, but I believe that these ban requests should be on a seperate thread from the ban appeal thread in general. Or at least, have a special tag for them next to the [open] tag. back to topic: I'm personally against this feature in general, but I know that people find this feature helpful so I won't say "remove it", but can you guys please lower the max ban time to 3 months? I feel like some people make a misjudgement on how long they want to be banned for, and they just end up regretting it (which is stupid, but it's clearly happening). And if they don't regret it, but want more than 3 months, they can just reinstate the ban length if they still feel the same. It should help eliviate some of the stupid drama as the wait to be unbanned at max would be lower.
