Dragoness Family Case History

[Anaris]

Multiple Continents
Complaints: EC #868, #889, #904 AT #444 SI #27, #42, #73 BT #420
Date: 2011 - 2020
About: Dragoness Family

The player of the Dragoness Family has been the perpetrator of an unacceptable streak of poor behavior which has spanned years. Recently, the Titans reprimanded the player for insulting and accusing game volunteers of cheating and unfair bias. The player has also questioned the validity of their history of punishments, claiming they have done nothing wrong in the past.

In response to a public request by the player, the following is a summary of all reported and punished transgressions made by the player of Dragoness. ALL of the following have resulted in punishments/warnings from the Titans to the player.

To be clear: The Titans/Admins/Devs do not "interfere" with the game. Their jobs in these positions require them to interact with the game, and sometimes will result in shifts in the in-game balance of power. This is a normal part of the game, and not an abuse of their positions or otherwise something they are to be reprimanded for. Some are players, while others are former players who no longer play yet still offer their personal time to support the game. There is zero tolerance for insulting or disparaging them, particularly in a venue where they have no opportunity to respond and presented in an unconstructive manner.

The following are the resolved punishments laid against the player of Dragoness. Messages have not been edited other than to redact names, realms, and specific profanity.

#444 2011: Inappropriate OOC vulgarity (F-word)

And again we have to vote and I don't get HOW THE !@#$ to vote.

#27 2014: OOC calling another player a "retarded idiot"

I simply find it surprising that I got promoted and  a <<real live retarded idiot>> figured one of my messages was not appropriated and accidentaly/surprisingly at the exact same moment proclaimed against it. That is meta gaming abuse, the lowest of things you can do in a game. If you can't beat them you call for the game master, chat moderator or worst case some ueber admin.

#420 2015: OOC insult to another player after being tortured (A-word)

That should be an out of char message. Not possible from prison.
So: thank you that you are such an !@#$%^& in real live that you tourture me causing me to lose a sword fighting point which takes me month if not years in real life to regain.
Thanks [NAME REDACTED], thank you so much ... next titan requests about you I wont ignore but answer with: "Ban that !@#$%^& prick!

#42 2016: OOC calling realm mates "stupid" and "dumb"

(OOC: next time you vote for rulers get a damn clue about what is IC and what is OOC and what is *in the game*. You traded OOC fun ... understandable, for game play. I play the game for winning. We are not playing against our 10 year old sons or daughters where we can be soft to give them a chance to *learn*. Not finishing [REALM REDACTED] in the beginning of the game was fine. Destroying your own realm by voting a "role player" into rulership where it was obvious that he would "play that role" till the end: that was pretty dumb ... no offense to the player ... actually: I would do the same. No offense to that player: but yes, I'm really offended that my realm mates are so stupid that a majourity actually voted for him ... not sure if I enjoyed XMas ... and I'm even more offended that people/players defended the situation with words like: "you voted for him, deal with it!" )

#868 2018: Banned a new noble who had been in the realm for three days for "not following orders". While technically an IR violation, the issue was punished as "Not Giving Newcomers the Benefit of the Doubt".

#73 2019: Inappropriate OOC message

I suggest you apply yourself for a name change ... no worries, I wont report you ... so you can keep it until a Titan freaks out. But getting bombarded by a "retard" with a "retarded name" with dozens of messages (which imply you know the game mechanics) is actually not really funny when you were forced to rename two of your chars just a few weeks ago, because "uh no native english speakers think your names for commoners are wrong, hah", no, it is not funny.

#889 2019: OOC suggestion that other players are a detriment to the game because they are more active than him (also arguably an IR violation).

(OOC: this is a game, not a part time job. If you can not agree to make the game more fun and more easy for everyone, that is up to you)

#904 2020: OOC messages to realm accusing Devs/Titans/Admins of cheating/bias/influencing

So the devs are again interfering with the game ...
I spare me the correct term, and just call it: a bloody shame!

There is nothing to approve. There is no "game rule" that devs have to approve or deny a merger.
It is just the same bull!@#$ as every were: devs are players too, and they can not distinguish between being players and being a dev. They took Bescanon from Perdan, they took the finest R5 SF RC of the continent from Perdan - did not restore it yet after nearly a year, probably to stupid, to hand write some SQL statements to put it back. But most likely: simply ill evil purpose. Some devs playing on the Perdan enemy side thinking they can invent new meta rules ... that is the point why I'm leaving.

Admins/Devs/Titans interfering all the time is the death to this game. I hear we once had close to 10,000 players, now we are ... 250? Or what? Whose fault is that? Certainly not the players faults.

(The game's peak was at about 2,000 registered players around the time that Dwilight was first opened in early 2008.)

To be clear, any complaints or disagreements about these punishments in-game are still entirely unacceptable, and will be punished accordingly. If you wish to discuss these, please do so here, in a civilized manner, or over email at community@battlemaster.org.

[Constantine]

I appreciate the time you've spent compiling this list. For the sake of fairness I have to make a few remarks also.

To be clear: The Titans/Admins/Devs do not "interfere" with the game.

Absolutely disagree. This terminology is warranted in this specific case. When a dev arbitrarily erases the realm's best RC along with the walls in key border regions I will call this interference. And that was what Banetal was alluding to in his message.

#868 2018: Banned a new noble who had been in the realm for three days for "not following orders". While technically an IR violation, the issue was punished as "Not Giving Newcomers the Benefit of the Doubt".

No. I remember that case very well. He banned a character on my character's order. And not for inactivitiy but for spying. No player was ever punished or even scolded for inactivity. We treat IR very seriously in Perdan.

#889 2019: OOC suggestion that other players are a detriment to the game because they are more active than him (also arguably an IR violation).
Quote
(OOC: this is a game, not a part time job. If you can not agree to make the game more fun and more easy for everyone, that is up to you)

Again, this is not what really happened. There was no accusing players of being too active. Here's the full letter in question, to add context.

Letter from Banetal Dragoness
Message sent to the judges of East Continent (9 recipients) - 15 days, 22 hours, 54 minutes ago
My Peers,
my friends.

The current status is: three realms reafirmed they stand to the agreement.
I assume those who did not reafirm it, still stand to it.

So only Redhaven and Eponllyn don't want to join.

I for my part, I'm to old to keep track of many many agreements.

(OOC: this is a game, not a part time job. If you can not agree to make the game more fun and more easy for everyone, that is up to you)

That said, realms not joining obviously get their nobles treated like they treat our nobles.

I remember the screaming and bickering of the Redhaven judge in my dungeon quiet livedly.

At Your Service

P.S. if there are no further answers regarding nay or aye, I will repost the current status of the agreement in 8 days, sunday.

Banetal Dragoness
Seneschal of Perdan
Duke of the Golden City
Margrave of Aix

There is no way you can interpret it as accusing other judges of being too active. Showing ooc irritation with IC decisions other judges were making was surely wrong, but it was not about IR violation, which is important to note.

I had to comment on these instances because they imply that this player casually violated IR policy which was never the case. It is important that his name is not thusly smeared.
Crude and blunt language in his ooc ramblings has always been the real issue with this player.

That being said, I believe that the latest punishment was a fair and reasonable one and I had no intention to criticize it. Only to rectify some unfortunate implications.

[Gildre]

Absolutely disagree. This terminology is warranted in this specific case. When a dev arbitrarily erases the realm's best RC along with the walls in key border regions I will call this interference. And that was what Banetal was alluding to in his message.

I was in Highmarch at the time, and if I recall correctly this was due to an Adventurer setting off a Portal Stone. It wasn't as if the Devs just clicked delete on the RC for the fun of it. Portal Stones have a long history of cataclysmic events. In OS we blew one of our regions back to the stone age messing around with them. It is a cause and effect thing. In addition, I remember the Admins accepting the complaints about the power of Portal Stones, toning down their power, and making it very likely the user will die in response to this event. So I don't know what people are still complaining about? It was an RC. Sure, a good one, but it has been two years and actions have been taken to prevent such things from happening any more. When exactly do we move on with our lives?

No. I remember that case very well. He banned a character on my character's order. And not for inactivitiy but for spying. No player was ever punished or even scolded for inactivity. We treat IR very seriously in Perdan.

Uhh... it says he was in the realm for three days. How did you determine he was a spy in three days?

Showing ooc irritation with IC decisions other judges were making was surely wrong, but it was not about IR violation, which is important to note.

They say it was "arguably" an IR violation, so I am assuming the point was him disparaging other players, not the activity portion. I was in Epponlyn during this, and we were told the other Judges were making prisoner agreements and he sent this out of frustration of not wanting to have to remember several different prisoner agreements. Does that not fall under the "his problem" category? If he didn't want to deal with it, then his realm suffers with no agreement, no? No need for OOC attacks IMO.

I can't really comment on anything else, as I don't think I was around, or wasn't in the right circles to be privy.

[Constantine]

I was in Highmarch at the time, and if I recall correctly this was due to an Adventurer setting off a Portal Stone. It wasn't as if the Devs just clicked delete on the RC for the fun of it. Portal Stones have a long history of cataclysmic events. In OS we blew one of our regions back to the stone age messing around with them. It is a cause and effect thing. In addition, I remember the Admins accepting the complaints about the power of Portal Stones, toning down their power, and making it very likely the user will die in response to this event. So I don't know what people are still complaining about? It was an RC. Sure, a good one, but it has been two years and actions have been taken to prevent such things from happening any more. When exactly do we move on with our lives?

We can certainly move on with our lives. We can also call a spade a spade.
It was not game mechanics, it was an event introdced manually by a dev and the nature and severity of this event was arbitrarily decided in a non-transparent manner.
I am willing to let it rest. But let us not pretend it was anything but "interfering" with the game. And let us not slam a person for using that perfectly fair term.

Uhh... it says he was in the realm for three days. How did you determine he was a spy in three days?

That is actually beyond the point. Even if I was mistaken (I wasn't), my point was that the ban had nothing to do with player's activity. 
Sure' we've learned our lesson. We don't ban spies any more. So I guess it was a double win for team north.

They say it was "arguably" an IR violation, so I am assuming the point was him disparaging other players, not the activity portion. I was in Epponlyn during this, and we were told the other Judges were making prisoner agreements and he sent this out of frustration of not wanting to have to remember several different prisoner agreements. Does that not fall under the "his problem" category? If he didn't want to deal with it, then his realm suffers with no agreement, no? No need for OOC attacks IMO.

I agree. But once again, my point was it was not an activity issue.

Don't paint the guy as violating IR. That's all I'm saying.

[Gildre]

We should totally ban spies if we find out they are spies! I just don't understand how that could be determined in three days.

[Zakky]

And Portal Stone events should never have had that much of an impact in the first place. If devs really erased a RC then it is a borderline interference.

I can definitely see why he was upset. I would have been fuming pissed too. Good that portal stones are gone now. Hopefully they will never do something as disagreeable as that ever.

As for his other letters... dear god. I am surprised that he hasn't been perma banned yet...

[Anaris]

Others have done a good job addressing some of the points you have brought up, but I want to make sure a few things are completely clear.

No. I remember that case very well. He banned a character on my character's order.

"I was just following orders" is never a valid defense for breaking the game's rules. All it means is that you are both culpable.

And not for inactivitiy but for spying. No player was ever punished or even scolded for inactivity.

That is actually beyond the point. Even if I was mistaken (I wasn't), my point was that the ban had nothing to do with player's activity. 

I want to be absolutely crystal clear about a few things here:

1. You were wrong. Absolutely, 100%, completely wrong. The character that was banned was not a spy.
2. You banned a new player after only five days in the realm for something that is not, and has not been for many years, considered a valid reason for banning.
3. Even if the player had, in fact, been a spy, you would still have been in the wrong, punishment would have been fully deserved, and I would still be very angry at you for not giving them the benefit of the doubt. You had no evidence of their treachery, only a vague suspicion based on the fact that they had once had a character in a realm you were at war with, so you did something that has a very, very high chance of driving any new player away from this game forever.
4. The fact that you still think of it in terms of a "win" for "team north" shows me that you are prioritizing in-character rivalries over out-of-character concerns like the fun of other real live human beings and the health of the game. This is deeply concerning to me, for reasons that ought to be fairly obvious.
5. Giving a reason of "not following orders" for a ban of a player who, during the time since receiving the orders, has neither acted nor sent any letters, is, in fact, an Inalienable Rights violation, provided that span of time is not long enough for the character to auto-pause.

[Constantine]

"I was just following orders" is never a valid defense for breaking the game's rules. All it means is that you are both culpable.

I agree with that.
Though I was not punished, so I'm not sure what you're getting at.

1. You were wrong. Absolutely, 100%, completely wrong. The character that was banned was not a spy.
2. You banned a new player after only five days in the realm for something that is not, and has not been for many years, considered a valid reason for banning.
3. Even if the player had, in fact, been a spy, you would still have been in the wrong, punishment would have been fully deserved, and I would still be very angry at you for not giving them the benefit of the doubt. You had no evidence of their treachery, only a vague suspicion based on the fact that they had once had a character in a realm you were at war with, so you did something that has a very, very high chance of driving any new player away from this game forever.

I don't believe I was wrong. Because a) that was not a new player, although he played under a freshly created account and b) there is never a way to have conclusive evidence, given that information may be passed via out of game channels.
Certain players in the north have made a point of low-key taunting us ever since, on several occasions showing thorough knowledge of our internal discussions and even sending to my previous general copies of orders he had issued hours before. Having learned from previous mistakes, we have never once acted upon such acts of spying because there was no way to get actual evidence in-game. Thus we just learned to live with the fact the enemy reads everything we say.

4. The fact that you still think of it in terms of a "win" for "team north" shows me that you are prioritizing in-character rivalries over out-of-character concerns like the fun of other real live human beings and the health of the game. This is deeply concerning to me, for reasons that ought to be fairly obvious.

Why weren't you concerned when the entire realm of Perdan kept saying that we were no longer having fun? Why weren't you concerned when our ooc plights were largely ignored or made fun of?
Now you want to single ME out as spoiling everyone's fun and trying to "win" the game?
No, I don't accept your accusations. 

5. Giving a reason of "not following orders" for a ban of a player who, during the time since receiving the orders, has neither acted nor sent any letters, is, in fact, an Inalienable Rights violation, provided that span of time is not long enough for the character to auto-pause.

If that was the reason stated behind the ban then I guess he was technically culpable.
Still we all know this was not really a ban for inactivity.

[Gildre]

Thus we just learned to live with the fact the enemy reads everything we say.

I just want to say that I think this is a very mature approach. 100% it sucks if other players use OOC facets to gain IC knowlegde, and they are a detriment to the game, but I would personally always favour giving someone the benefit of the doubt and deal with spying than to punish someone for something they might not have done and possibly push a player away from the game. I know we can't appease everyone, but we have to try as much as we can, right?

Why weren't you concerned when the entire realm of Perdan kept saying that we were no longer having fun?

I don't think Vita and Anaris are responsible for the fun being had in every realm of BattleMaster. It is a collaborative effort between Government members and the players to do everything they can to make a realm fun. Furthermore, isn't this the reason they made the Ruler/Admin OOC message channel? So that Rulers and Admins could have conversations OOC about how to make things more fun if islands are in deadlocked states or whatnot? Maybe Perdan needs to die for the betterment of the island, maybe the war needs to gear down and realms do 1vs1 wars, maybe there needs to be a political dynamic shift? Discussing these things in OOC is what that channel is there for.

Still we all know this was not really a ban for inactivity.

Then why would he not write the appropriate reason for the ban? I really can't fathom this one. I don't see what benefit could be gained by putting the wrong/incorrect reason. I know it wasn't you, so you probably don't have any more reasoning than I do, I am just pointing it out.