| Summary: | Inalienable Rights Violation |
| Violation: | Activity/Play at one\'s own pace |
| World: | Dwilight |
| Complainer: | TH |
| About: | Malus |
Full Complaint Text:Malus recently sent out a demand that stated that 4 foriegn nobles (not of his realm) that charged them with a specific crime, that required for them to both answer for their charges and to make reparations for these charges within the deadline of "One Day".
I contacted the player of Malus, and let them know that I felt that such a stringent time deadline was not in line with how the game was intended to be played and that I felt it should be adjusted to accommodate people who could not either be online during this "one day" or would never receive the message until it was too late. While he stated that he would usually agree with me, no action was taken to rectify the situation on an IC level, and so I make this report.
The Inalienable rights state:
You may:
"Playing at your own speed, timing and activity level, i.e. logging in as often or seldom as you like, at whatever times you like."
Also:
"Being allowed to play at whatever activity level you wish also means you should not suffer disadvantages for doing so. If you are fined, banned, threatened or otherwise punished for "inactivity", or for not having been online at any specific time or day, the Titans will be very happy to counter, so please contact them with information."
This stringent deadline clearly violates not only the wording of inalienable rights, but also the intent of the rights, which is to protect players from having to constantly be online in order to play battlemaster without consequences.
I suggested that at the "very minimum" any sort of deadline that someone would want to place for any matter of importance should be at least 3 days in length. No action was taken in this regard and I believe someone responded that "you have half a day left" or some such.
This entire situation to me as quite simply ruined my perception of the game and the fact that multiple other players who are playing with us seem to support such strict playing sickens me. My character was one of the nobles listed as needing to respond to charges, and as I was online I was able to do so somewhat. However, due to the nature of the situation, I was forced to be online and play battlemaster for nearly 4 hours today just to get a handle on the situation and still accomplished very little.
I am quite utterly convinced that had I not been able to log on today, or I did not have multiple free hours to dedicate towards playing "a lightweight game" that many years of play in my character would have simply been destroyed overnight upon logging on.
In addition, the character Malus is a ruler character, and as such he is in a position of power amongst the game. It is his responsibility to also follow the "Government Rules" of our game which outline the responsibility of the government members, especially the Ruler to promote "Fun" in the game, and not to limit fun and interaction through use of pressing into people's activity cycles. Due to the position that Malus holds in this, his deadline carries extraordinary weight amongst multiple realm's worth of nobles and limits the gameplay and interaction possible for all nobles involved for 3 realms (not just the 4 nobles accused of a crime).
When the situation first arose which eventually led to the deadline made, it was done in collaboration of multiple players as a way to increase the fun and interaction between characters in the game in our realms. This initially succeeded, and if it was allowed to continue would no doubt have produced some of the best RP and interactions I've seen in a long time of playing BM. However, due to time stringent policies and messages by Malus, and then supported and added onto by other leaders who are allies with his character, this has been strictly cut down and limited.
Overall, the effects are simple: Time stringent actions such as these are a method of power-gaming which ruins the experience that BM has to offer. Due to the time-sensitive nature of the demand, nobles from Malus's realm are not given the chance to interact, object, approve, or simply state their opinions upon his actions as Ruler. The accused nobles not from his realm are not given the chance to interact or defend themselves properly. The nobles in the realm with the accused nobles are not allowed to interact with them or defend them properly, and the nobles of bystanding realms are not given the proper chance to interact or play their characters. A situation and RP planning which was intended to last at least a week to even get started and rolling has been attempted to be completely rapped up and finished in 2 days time.
