Long term ban instead of permanent ban

Dave already explained it throughoutly. Not sure what else you are asking for

 

What about you, Kenny? What do you think

 

This alone should be enough to do something about it, wether it is accepted or rejected I think the point has been discussed long enough and both sides have explained pretty well why whould be their way. I just can foretell what will happen, if the long ban replaces the permaban:

1. Blatant vote abusers won't be affected with this, they'll just keep vote abusing with their 999 accounts, eventually getting banned, get their appeals eventually denied and continue making new accounts to keep ban evading without getting discovered. Nothing changes here. This loop will never end, doesn't matter what or how ToS is changed. Unless developers code a magic device that breaks the loop, there is no solution to this but manually chasing the vote abusers and kicking them one by one. This is highly unoptimal because there is no autoban for voting system, but there is no other way around it until the magic device autoban for voting system is developed. Realistically I don't expect this to happen as this server has been around for 8 yeras and if there hasn't been developed any by this time, then it's highly likely it won't ever happen.

2. Occasional and "accidental" vote abusers, who happen to be (some of the permabanned) the people commenting this very thread, may get a second chance. These people I doubt will be dumb to attempt to "exploit" the new forgiving rule change. As they are already permabanned and it its NOT wise form them to keep vote abusing as this will only raise suspicions and they will eventually be banned AGAIN losing their second chance. But likewise, there are always dumb people who will keep vote abusing regardless. Depending on their course of action these guys will be divided in two groups:

Group A: Group that eventually vote abuses to the point is warranted a permaban. While they aren't discovered, yes, they WILL gain unfair advantage AGAIN. All this won't matter because of course our hard-working GM's hates unfair cheaters so they will be eventually permabanned at some point making all those vote abuses worthless and not only losing their second chance, but also the time they spent on this server. How much they will "negatively affect" the market economy I can't tell, but something must be done to prevent this scenario from ever happening. THIS SHOULD NOT EVER HAPPEN.

Group B: Group that plays legit since day1 from their second chance and continue to play legit till the end of the world. Eventually contributing to the playerbase. I'm assuming these guys are smart enough to not break the rules again. They were permabanned and they know it just isn't worth the risk. Now assuming this they can potentially invite more players to the server and maybe stop the server from being deadlier than usual.
This is the group (I'm talking to you STAFF) that is worth to try recover and they truly deserve a second chance.

You cannot punish Group B because of the decisions of Group A. The former group's intent is malicious since day1, sure some of them won't blatantly vote abuse but they will still commit the crime, regardless of quantity. They don't deserve a second chance, but we won't know who will abide by the rules and who will follow them until you give both equally a second chance to PROVE they can change.

Basically, what is staff is doing with major vote abusers, is putting them in a single room, bag, concentration camp, you get the point, then they pile them up and murders every single one of them, regardless if they truly will follow the rules next time or not, if they were to be unbanned. While yes this indeed solves the problem of the pesky Group A scenario, it creates a problem for Group B, they won't ever be allowed to play again, they won't be given a second chance to prove they can play the right way. It just doesn't feel right to punish both groups equally when their intentions aren't and will never be the same.

There must be another way to this... stop this massacre.

Due to the fact there will be always a group of cheaters anywhere, maybe long term ban is not enough or isn't the best solution, but anyways it's a proposed solution to welcome back the group of players that will indeed change their mind and play by the rules if given a second opportunity. Yes, I agree that Group A deserves to burn in hell, but it must be done so Group B doesn't get affected in any way. The whole point of this damn thread is to find a balance to optimally punish Group B (irremediably cheaters) while being forgiving to Group A (no longer cheat addicts), not "lets allow cheaters the opportunity to ruin the server", nor "lets just remove permaban and allow hackers instead", but to find a goddamn balance between the two things. Is that even hard to do?

 

I just have to note that the survey is highly bias and inconclusive as the answers don't give the full spectrum of opinions regarding permanent bans vs. long-term bans. Where is the option for, "I think permanent bans can and should be given, if warranted, but are not the solution to all problems. Perhaps some bans should be less severe. Please explain below."

You can't seriously think that the survey isn't biased with how it presents its options.

 

I think the wording of the vote options is strongly biased. Assertive and absolute words such as "best solution", "all problems", and "useless" were used to misrepresent the ban process and with the intention to obtain the desired outcome.
Staff ain't stupid. You can't imagine how many abusers vote on multiple accounts on a daily basis and then lying to our face like an innocent lamb. We don't randomly permanently ban players just because he/she accidentally voted more than once last night. If in doubt, feel free to report yourself in the report section and we will take into account the confession.
Also for some cases, it's difficult for me to take your responses seriously when you just pull random numbers out of nowhere. You simply lost the credibility on my end

 

I can swear to you that some of the things I'm telling you now are answers from my friends, and my own cases are my own personal accounts. I'm very serious about the dialogue with GM,
Otherwise,I would have ignored these for a long time and went directly to get individual accounts.

I value these honesty very much, and I hope to get some opportunities, so I put forward these, It's also because someone supported me and asked me to have a try. It's not a good thing to give up and leave, and it's good for both sides to solve this problem.

What's more, how can you change the problematic part?>>can switch the other words ?

give some suggestion cuz that poll is trans by the softwave

 

It's rather dissapointing that instead of bringing up the important points to be discussed, you instead choose focus on some numbers that I'm just using as an example (If you haven't noticed, my whole foretelling was a hypothetical scenario with hypotethical problems and solutions, regardless, they are more real than you may or not think). I don't think any of these numbers (cheaters vs non-cheaters) matters at all. It's just some statistical data and I can't possibly change the outcomes but only suggesting and pointing out some glaring flaws the current ban appeal system has.

Then what, are more people BANNED participating in the survey agreeing with a 62% rather than the other disagreeing part in 35%
Like are really 62% of the people permanently banned from the server and every single one of them are REALLY BIASED towards this?
Something's gotta be really wrong when more than a half ot the participants agree with ban reduction while the other half which is fine with the permanent duration is a minority.

And yes, I was overly dramatic with the numbers on vote abuses, because again I don't know the statistical data to back up them. But I give them as an example, not to be meant to be taken literally "999", it's just a symbolic example.

Like again, youy can't simply discredit my whole reasoning simply because I'm lacking some numbers, I don't work as Staff so I don't know how many vote abusers are out there. Again you are deviating from the point which is, the way ban appeals area handled and their punishment, not the numbers related to them.

 

Whether the survey is or not biased its not actually important. What matters are the answers with useful feedback that either agrees or disagrees with OP's suggestion. Of course, I do think the poll itself and the possible options selects aren't worded in the best way so it could use better wording OP wants to bring and discuss while avoiding the biasiness. Sure some just answer "yes" and "no" without providing any constructive feedback to help with the thread.

Many examples of ban appeals being improperly or unfairly handled were given, which are in very much relation to this thread. I think you should focus on that instead. There will be always be given biased people with biased opinions with no useful information or context to give in and you can choose to ignore them just like in any discussion.

On second thought you should change your poll so you can give non-biased options and include more relevant stuff like:
1. Do you agree with the Permanent Ban for Major Vote Abuse? and Why?
2. Do you Agree with a Long-Term Ban? and Why?
3. If you chose 1, are you an active legit player or permabanned?
4. If chose 2, are you an active legit player or permabanned?

I would like to know how many of the people who agree/disagrees with the suggestion made by OP (you), are permabanned people (by vote abuse) or actually legit players/staff.

 

And for non vote abuse bans, staff should be looking at bans on a case-by-case, gauging actual impact of an infraction, and assigning proportional punishments, not outright permabanning people over unimportant things because there are obvious, clear, much better solutions with dealing with these kind of situations that don't involve axing the playerbase.

 

How can I Delete the old poll? can I or I need to ask this from dave or Sen?

 

You cannot edit a poll after already submitting it? I have never tried so I can't tell no idea. You can try asking Forum Moderator to see if they can change the poll

(I just noticed that you LITERALLY added what I suggested to you to add in the poll, instead of changing the wording of the current options which aren't appropiate according to some of the people who are actively following the discussion, they were meant to replace the current wording not add more options on top of them that just makes the whole thing more cluttered and less understandable)

Anyways, it's your poll, I should not tell how to do it as long as you are able to bring up a point to be discussed here.

 

Do you mean that if it is reset, people who originally voted will not be able to vote again?

Also, I am a non English speaking country. I don't(or can't) feel that words can bring biased or bad parts to others

Most of the time, I speak through translation or whatever I think. If there is anything that offends you, please forgive me.

And now I've done this according to the option proposed by leodexe. Do you think it's appropriate?

 

What is your main language? Taiwanese? Chinese?

I see you are struggling with the English as currently the poll with all the extra options you included doesn't make any sense right now. It was fine with the 3-choice option but as Kenny and Kethoe said, they use certain words that may make look it biased, so all you must do is rephrase the three original questions so they sound better without being much of a bias. At this point it would be better to PM you instead of suggesting how to "fix" your poll through this post as this interrupt the original purpose of your thread.

Blame it on language barrier and all but, even thought it is a complete mess, I think it can be improved with better wording but I don't speak tw/ch to communicate better with you.

 

Er, because I really don't understand what they care about (the words?).

But now that you've said that, I'll try to see if there are any words to replace them.

And what's PM you meaning ?

 

As unpopular as this may sound, its a no from me.

I will never believe anyone who says they "i didnt know i couldnt double vote" If they truly did not know (lmao), then consider it a life lesson to always read TnCs and/or fine print before you sign anything. Be glad its just your royals gameplay and not your house title deed that you lost

Plus, they dont get perma banned for minor vote abuse. So in the unlikely cases where they do double vote once or twice, they learn from their mistakes and only endure a short 2week ban or so.

We have to appreciate the fact that the perm ban punishment has to inculcate the idea of deterrence, to prevent people from vote abusing and/or hacking.

The server already has tons of such people despite having the perm ban active. Reducing it to a fixed duration ban would only make the situation worse and lead to potential server economic cataclysm if i may add.

I do feel for those that have left the game for long periods of time and got their account hacked, and hackers using those accounts to hack etc. Maybe the GMs could implement a new rule for this.

However, regarding vote abusers and hackers, I think the perm ban is considered a form of mercy by itself. They should be ridiculed and memed on daily but instead they just have to leave the game.

I hope my explanation provided some sort of clarification albeit coming from a casual like myself. In the event that it did not, here's a better analogy.

You're a regular guy who buy/sell stocks on the market for income.

Some people mess with the stock market so they can make huge bucks but in doing so, cause your stocks to crash in value and making you lose thousands of dollars.

They've been doing it for years and people like you suffer from it and your livelihood is affected.

The law finally caught up to them and instead of giving them jail, their punishment is just "you cant trade on the stock market anymore"

And some people riot, asking for their ban on the stock market be reduced to 6months, giving reasons like "pls no i will change i promise"

How would you feel?

Shitty I presume. Exactly.

 

Is this poll/post supposed to solely be about vote abusers?...

Vote abusers aren't the only banned people around

 

OP was permanently banned due to major vote abuse. It makes sense for him to do the poll specificaly with major vote abuses in mind but other infractions that warrants perma can also be considered as the main reason for those bans are amongst the lines of "you have gained an unfair advantage over other users who play by the rules therefore your ban will remain permanent", in this narrative not only does fit Major Vote Abuse and Account Sharing but also fits for other permanent bans like RWT, Hacking, Macro botting, scripting, etc. etc. etc.

As of my personal opinion, account sharing isn't that big of an issue to guarantee a permanent ban and major vote abuse can be handled in a different way, for example you can ban all the related accounts if the offense was too severe on first time but, so those are the two infractions that would like to be discussed and reduced the ban sentence for perma to something different. And if we go to an extreme case, we can also discuss why permabannig someone over an auto-pet food bot isn't an appropiate punishment for the level of the offense commited and that's pretty much where I would draw the line for "the limit".

As for RWT, Actual Vac Hacking and Auto-Grinding botting. I consider those infractions too harmful to give anything less than a permanent ban. So let's focus instead on the "minor" infractions stated earlier.