Perma Ban clean slate, Statute of Limitations

I feel like some of the bans I've seen recently are a bit excessive.

I think there are a lot of scenarios in which instant perma bannable activities are done with at least some component of pure ignorance, especially starting out. I think there's a case to be made for those who reform themselves, or for there to be some consideration to be allowed to start fresh one time (i.e. perma ban the original account but allow play on a new account, with new accounts made from that IP or email being automatically put on a high alert list).

I also think there should be a limit to how long after an offense you're allowed to be banned. I think there's something not quite right about putting years of playtime into an account for example and then getting banned for something that happened years ago when you started after years of admin oversight. People aren't perfect and although there might be an element of willful neglect or intentional malice in avoiding bans or toying with the rules when starting out, I think the rewards of holding onto reformable players outweighs the downsides, especially as the player base that even knows what old school maple is gets older and older and start to forget.

Ik admins don't have infinite manpower but I would say that there should be some more flexibility built into the system.

 

The manpower required to observe and react to such people that have been shown forgiveness, with cases that would've been permabans, can be far too much for a private server that can only afford to have a handful of staff, or even be blessed with reliable people willing to do it for free.

I may be a bit biased in this regard, but I believe once a cheater, always a cheater.

I've been playing maplestory for 18 years.
My older brother originally got me into it when I was 10. My brother was the type of person to cheat in EVERY game he plays. He would constantly use scripts in maplestory, get banned, try newer scripts until he found reliable ones that were extremely difficult to detect. He would scam people all the time in FM.
I've witnessed him 'offering' to do the Zak JQ for people, then stealing everything off their account. I've also witnessed him using PIN crackers to get into peoples accounts.
He also installed keyloggers onto our own PC, to steal from my own account.
I've come home from school many times and went to play maplestory, only to find my account banned.

I would rather play in a server with fewer players that play the game with good faith, than a larger server with questionable players.

 

Well said, I agree with that a lot.

But I still think it's hard to make blanket statements about all other individuals. I would hope to at least see some admin discretion built into the rules so that it's not just an automatic banishment.

 

I agree there is likely some collateral damage in the vote abuse banhammer, but do the ends justify the means? Is one ignorant but otherwise harmless new player that may be (unfortunately) unreasonably banned worth the other 100 malicious players that then slip through to wreak havoc because rules were laxed? What about 1 in 1,000? 1 in 10,000? I don't know the answer, but somewhere in the middle the server has found some stability that would undoubtedly be put at risk with a change like this. In my opinion, we would need to know all of the information behind each ban to drive well informed decisions on changes to the ToS rule-set in question, and that's something that only staff has access to for obvious reasons. The best we can do as players is voice opinions like this to make staff aware of concerns, and help make noobs aware of the vote abuse rules as fast as possible.

All other perma ban reasonings besides vote abuse I think are fine and common sense stuff for the most part.

 

I agree with most of the comments above, and I just want to share my thoughts here.

For the staff to put their efforts into detecting, banning, and handling cases is already stretching their resources thin. This server is virtually non-profit, and GMs are here voluntarily helping out. Imposing complex protocols for each case is a massive undertaking and requires elevated permissions for various roles.

As we all know, there have been instances where GMs went rogue, and the Admins have no way to guarantee the intentions or actions of GMs with elevated privileges. Given this, it’s probably better to keep things as they are for now, given the current resource constraints.

 

I agree although the vast majority voted no for both, I think if someone has been permanently banned a few years ago and hasn't tried to create new accounts since then and geniunely asking for a second chance, they should get one. I'm a firm believer in second chance and that people can change.

I don't see it happening tho

 

Staff continuously tries to tell new players what vote abusing is:

• There’s like 3-4 different messages/quests what vote abuse is
• When you vote, Shanks Quest, new voting rules gatchapon

Over the years permanent ban illegal nx threshold has been increased:

• In years past I almost never saw minor vote abuse bans. The threshold for permanent used to be a lot lower
• ex: it used to be 150k illegal nx+ = perma ban, now it might be 300k illegal nx+

Botting, Macrobotting, and Hacking:

• These are the worst offenses in my opinion, worse than RWTing
• I think these three have the most negative effect to our market
• 0 Leniency for these, permanent ban should never be adjusted

RWT:

• You have to perma ban this on first offense. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of players who are so used to p2w they think it’s common sense to pay a little to play.
• Shanks quiz goes over RWT.
• GMs overtime have gotten more lenient tbh which is good. If you smega B>Feet pics 10m, it used to be an unanimous perma ban, now they just give you 14 day
• 0 leniency to people who purchase from RWT sellers. You have to go out of your way to find a site that you know sells illegal private server services, so it’s not an accident.
• “I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to google Mapleroyals 91/19 RC, make an account, ignore the disclaimer from the RWT seller that this is illegal and your own fault if you’re banned, paypal the middle man $300, and then get my item! It was just a natural motion!” /s
• If people can get away with a temp ban, I believe many people may RWT once to get a head start more willingly since it’s not the end of the world if they get banned once. They might even be able to hide some of the illegal items on storage characters GMs can’t track down.
• Jokes are one thing (S>my account for one bean burrito hehehe 69pp poopoo). But if a player makes an even half real claim to sell/want to sell their account, I believe it should be 100% a perma ban and no appeals. If they don’t sell it now, I think they’re very likely to sell it in the future since the idea has been considered.

Harassment and Disruptive Behavior:

• You used to be able to get perma’d off of 3 repeated bans of harassment or disruptive behavior, can’t anymore
• I think you can only get perma’d off banned of extreme doxing.
• I’ve had several long time friends banned for being doxxing animals, but overall, I think a permanent ban for 3 offenses should come back.
• People however weaponize this report category. I almost feel there should be a punishment for people who make excessive amounts of harassment/disruptive behavior reports who are very clearly witch hunting

My grey areas:

• Glitch abuse
• Account Sharing

I think these two are the only two I would even listen to adjusting the punishments.

Unlike RWTing and Major vote abusing, I think these two genuinely can be done by accident.

Glitch Abuse:

• Glitches are rarely only abused by one person. Word spreads fast
• Since now theres newer active staff, I believe glitches should be noticed more quickly so long as we keep an active group of gm interns. Now that gms have almost no powers to dupe or spawn items, I feel like the bar of entry should be lowered.
• My suggestion would be for staff to consider lowering glitch abuse to minor infractions so long as they’re not combining it with outside programs/editing files

Account Sharing: Now this is the complicated one

Not all account sharing situations are the same. While it is not harmful to the economy compared to hacking/botting, rwting, or duping/edited files. Accounting sharing is an immense advantage, especially to newer players. The amount of unfair progress if a new player is just gifted a 14x mage or free bishop mule is definitely the main reason a permanent ban exists. He would be able to jump past players who have been casually playing for 2-3 months. It’s not fair to the legit playerbase.

If we give a “only bannable time period” for account sharing and vote abuse it benefits a lot of weird cases.

If other players have suggestions what could be changed about account sharing feel free to offer your opinion.

#FreeRefine

 

Thanks for the input, I agree with all of the above.

However, I still think there should be some flexibility built in somewhere in the rules. Staff may not have the resources to carry out that flexibility but at the very least the option should be there.

I also don’t think anyone has adequately addressed the years long delay in the ban process though for some of these bans. I still think there’s something icky about hypothetically getting banned after years of building your accounts legitimately for something that happened when you first started because of admin oversight. I think if we’re implementing ban evasion, it should be carried out at least roughly equitably.

 

100% agree

The Account Sharing ban specifically is the most flexibility. It states in the rules its up to staff discretion.

There’s just too much information staff has verses us when we see the ban appeals. Too many things to consider.

If anything, if staff made a more strict outlined rubric to what qualifies as a perma ban for account sharing vs temp, while it may seem slightly heartless, it would clear up a lot of confusion in my opinion

Example: If you check more than 4/10 check boxes it qualifies as a permanent ban

• Shared an account with a user
• Used their account for over a month
• Used multiple shared characters
• High level character (120+) with valuable buff
• Used account for over 3 months
• Used the shared accounts nx which the original owner voted for on their own
• etc
• etc

 

I agree with these. Punishments for breaking certain rules should be moderated according to the severity of the infraction.

Technically, mechanics such as HP washing and telecasting are also 'glitch abuse', just ones that have become widely accepted as part of the game. Account sharing was also quite common back in the day, and someone who unknowingly violates the rule in a way that is not malicious and does not provide a substantial advantage to the player should be met with some degree of leniency. Or the punishment could be moderated to the degree of advantage that player gained from the infraction.

 

I had an idea, just like the real justice system, you could create a jail map, and essentially have the character, need to farm mine or some X task etc... After X amount of time, a reform/rehabilition where they have to type " i will not vote abuse or something 1000x to get released"

Do i think people deserve a 2nd chance after X amount of years? Yes, a 3rd chance? absolutely not. Mistakes can happen, and i agree with OP they could be part of a watchlist can hire/create a role for this, i'm sure there are plenty of players who would volunteer to be these "Baby GM' watchlist watchers" if needs be.

 

This is a very interesting idea. But I think making players who ignored like 4-5 sets of rules and choose to vote abuse anyways, your suggestion of online chores is almost meaningless and of little repercussions.

Maybe instead perma banned vote abusers have a one time chance to make a deal with @Matt

Vote abusers have to:

• Buy their own ticket to South Korea
• Tell Nexon Korea they play an illegal Maplestory Private Server
• Get enlisted in a 3 month labor camp
• Provide the proper documentation to staff once their 3 month labor camp is done

Serious Note:

• There’s so many versions of the rules of voting posted. You’re willingly ignoring them if you hit the threshold for permanent ban
• You don’t really naturally vote abuse. You have to get on a different pc or phone. Or use a vpn spoofer. You literally have to be knowledgeable to get around the one vote ip device system.
• This type of system already creates more work for the already overworked staff. We have new staff interns. Like it or not, most likely at least half the new staff will be irrelevant in probably 6~ months. Either inactivity, abuse, real life responsibilities catch up. Let’s not give them random dog work

It’s like when a student doesn’t hand in an entire year of homework and fails all the exams and asks for extra credit. Why would I waste my time making more work for myself to make you custom work when you couldn’t even do the normal work?

Edit:
Repeat offenders are why I personally would be against 2nd chances for permanent bans regarding vote abuse/RWT.

One of the many examples:
https://royals.ms/forum/threads/why-cant-i-connect.240878/#post-1486423

Once people open the floodgate, it’s hard to shut and go back to playing normally. Kind of like Rose Garden. People still cant really digest they’re back to making 500m a week vses a day and tons of people I know have quit since bee npc removal.

 

Personally, I think people can change, and there should definitely be statute of limitations for certain offences (vote abuse and account sharing mainly). Punishing players for these past actions isn’t the best way to build a community that genuinely respects the rules. It feels more like controlling through fear of being reported instead of fostering genuine respect for the rules. This also opens the door for some malicious players to utilize to their advantage and thus, weaponize the system. They could report someone they dislike, hoping that something from their history sticks and gets them banned—even if it’s unrelated to the original report. Basically, players are taking random shots in the dark to get players they dislike banned.

This is the truth about the community and structure in royals which to me is most disheartening.

 

I would make the argument that the Multi-Voting seems like such a big deal is because the 'delay' of being banned for it for the people who missed the other 5 alerts that it's against the rules.

There was a ban appeal a while back that stuck with me, "You're lucky we caught you so early so it wasn't a perm ban"

I think that's what 's causing some of this discussion because 98% of the time, it's severe enough that it becomes a perm ban with no warning due to manpower issues. (Not blaming staff)
It's really tough because would an earlier 14 day ban before it's too late cause them to stop (Even if it's just 'cause they got caught' so they know to stop?)
Do people do it because "Oh I didn't get immediately banned or warned so it must be okay?"

This might be my Psychology degree talking, but I'm curious how many people are "How much cheating can I get away with without getting banned" and how much is true ignorance (Yes I know how can people be ignorant with 5 alerts).

The problem is I don't think we want to welcome back the 'how much cheating can I get away with people" and people are more friendly to the idea of "whoops I was ignorant" and there's no easy way to tell.

 

once a year, allow banned users to make an appeal where they post a public video of their actual self apologizing (minimum: 5 minute long speech) and then the community has to vote on if they should be given a second chance on a brand new account or not

XD

 

Aw Heidi, thank you for such a detailed post! But I must confess - it was a joke and I was only shitposting. Sorry!
There actually was a game called H1Z1 that did that once for cheaters lol. I've also seen games give banned players another chance for huge sums of money.

But being serious, I don't think it'd be so bad if some permanent bans were reduced to very lengthy sentences instead (like years). With that said, if you really like this server you'll follow all the rules whether you agree with them or not, so I understand the 0 tolerance policy.

 

#free okki