Player of Atanamirs account lock.

[Weylyn]

Uhm. He did what a good King does. These OOC cheaters were ruining the game! I myself would have banned them so others have a good experience. Note that later the titans did lock some of them. Seriously, these guys were ruining our fun. And now Anaris says we should let cheaters play and shut up? If the titans cant handle the workload, then get more titans. Seriously man?

Loot at BM description: "we dislike cheaters and abusers, and players and GameMasters cooperate on removing them."

If the Titans, at the time, decide that they have insufficient evidence to act on, it isn't a ruler's place to take matters into his own hands.

So no, he didn't do what a good King does. The Titans are not his personal enforcement branch, and his word alone isn't sufficient evidence to prove multi cheating.

As for the Dobromic incident, don't even go there. Seriously, don't. I don't even know what you people mean by "suspicious", particularly when the characters aren't in your own realm. You can't possibly know login times, you can't possibly know players' motivations, and failing that I'm lost as to what "suspicious behavior" could possibly entail. If you think something if fishy, you report them and the Titans will find the evidence if there is any to be found.

[flames]

If Alex thought it was a bug it was his RIGHT and obligation as a good player to share this information. The correct thing would have been to tell him off, that he is wrong. NOT LOCK HIM!

Well, to be honest, he didn't just share the information. He was accusing us of cheating and threatening that we shouldn't move to Hagley, or he will report us and all...

Out-of-Character from Atanamir of Umbar   (4 days, 15 hours ago)
Message sent to the Generals of East Continent (8 recipients)

There is probably a battle bug, the Eponllyn noble Myrnia did not skimirsh in Hagley.

I am sure you noticed as well, but obviously you have decided to abuse this attack.

Scribe Note Scout Report (Hagley)
Scribe Note  Scout Report (Greatbridge)

I consider you hereby informed and if you continue I will report an abuse of the bug, given that no battle in Hagley will only give you an advantage.

Since I had lots of RL work that week, I did not notice anything and I wouldn't even know if it is a bug or whatever. Our army movements were decided long before. Of course, noone planned to cheat or abuse bugs.

When I got this message I thought that it's weird and ignored it. I myself don't have a problem with player of Atanamir and I would prefer him to stay, but I can understand titans' reasoning.

[Eldargard]

If tournaments were created as a means of combating the us vs. them mentality, perhaps it just needs to be beefed up a bit. Some ideas:

* Allow characters that can not participate still attend (already proposed i believe)
* Have hosting a tournament provide a production boost realm wide
    * boost is small but variable depending on how much is invested in the tournament
    * boost starts one week before the tournament and lasts until one week after
* Have an automated "Tournament of the Titans" every game year (turning of the seasons)
    * Tournament is located on a mysterious island
    * Characters from all islands can join
    * All characters can join
    * Prize money is high and comes from nowhere
* If a noble of a region participates in a tournament, that region gains a production boost while gone. If the noble does well, an additional production boost occurs after the tournament. This bonus boost lasts longer if you placed better.

Just some thoughts!

[Menethil]

BlueStar and m2rt.

I was very loved in Caligus just as much as Atanamir was probably in Perdan.   The difference being was I played the game properly and made as little impact to the game by my leaving.  I dont think anyone else quit Caligus at the time.  Maybe shortly after a couple of people left however I didnt follow and do not know that.

Everyone who has decided to quit because the Titan's decided to take action against a player who has repeated offenses to the social contract.  There is no way to justify ANY action that doesnt abide the social contract.  It was not Alex's job to do this.  You all realise the whispering and badtalk of players that he suspected of cheating mark these said players with a badname permenantly to the entire group.  Everyone knows Alex was paranoid but his only duty was to report directly to the titans suspected cheaters.  He however decided to take matter in his own hands countless times which is the underlying problem with the player.  He felt he was defender, judge and executioner of his own verdict.

I bolded the part because i feel that is the underlying reason why what action was taken against him.  With regards to those leaving and people posting about who is leaving.  This simply doesnt matter.  Its simply showing a bigger problem that multiple players all in High stagnant Perdanese postiions for a long time will quit the game because of the ruling.  This shows that there is a huge OOC problem and Perdan was not a realm you could ever grow in as a new noble into higher positions as they were placekept.  This attitude is alot resembling of an OOC clan.

I will not hide that I left the game because I felt Alex was not even close to punished enough for what he did to me.  However, I accepted the decision and didnt take other people out of the game with me nor did I start a forum war to try and get my way.  You all have played the game for a very long time.  I dont think you are doing good to yourself and him causing all this bickering.  When such decisions are taken people with be upset and others will be happy this has happened.  Somewhere the titans NEED to draw the line how much they can accept.  With Alex its obvious he crossed the line and its a learning lesson.

I do believe that someday he will be allowed to return to the game.  But im pretty sure its after a substantial timeout and a new family involved.  Those friends of Alex who really wish to see him back the right way.  Keep playing.  This may even do the player good.  An extended timeout however long time and the titans deem he needs may actually fix the bad part of Alex.  Obviously there is always a chance this does not happen or Alex doesnt wish to return to the game in the future.

Please just let the argument die down.  Nothing is going to come from this.  I think the titan's handle things very well for the most part.  They keep cases private because it prevents labelling people with bad reputations which i think is good.  Most people learn from their mistakes and its unfair to release minor breaches of social contract to the masses.

I will even make a request that this topic gets locked.  If you really want something to come from this open a new topic with suggestions on how to improve the Titan system in how they act, handle cases, transparency and so on.

[Anaris]

Unwin, some of those are pretty good ideas. Please repost them in the Feature Requests sub forum.

[Wolfang]

I remember more than a year ago, exactly on June 10, 2013, at 20:07, I had just started playing battlemaster and used to go on the irc regularly. By then I had convinced 5 people to start playing the game with me (although I had just been playing for a week or so). All of us joined Barca, and everyone just made second characters randomly (if they did at all).

Anyhow, I was a total noob and at the time still hung around on irc to ask questions about the game. Atanamir started talking to me in private and told me on irc (never talked to him before) warning me that he would file a report against all of the new Barca players because apparantly two of the  new players of Barca had joined Caligus ( a realm he was at war with ), first he told me they would only be losing time there (because Caligus would lose anyway) and I should tell them to leave, I told him I didn't control what they did, so then he told me this was clannish and bannable. He told me he'd played BM for nine years and  he would report us if more players joined because it would destabilize Caligus. I told him I would tell the other guys, but no assurances since for my part, they can do whatever they want, and I was asking other people on irc at the same time if it was bannable and they assured me it wasn't, after which he told me it would be ok for us all to join a realm in Atamara (Darka) since there are more players there and it would not destabilize the realm.

After that I stopped using irc quickly. As I kept playing and knew more about the game I was not very surprised to see Atanamir getting into one OOC argument after another, this only of the few that boiled over onto the forums.

I warned the other guys, that I had convinced to play, about this conversation, and they all reacted similarly, it was quite obvious he was trying to intimidate them in leaving by threatening to ban them because he was at war with that realm. Very low in my opinion considering he knew we were all new and didn't know the exact rules. I haven't brought it up since, but it's definitely one of the most messed up things I've encountered playing Battlemaster.

[Mac Tir]

Ultimately I agree with the ban on Atanamir. The Titans had their reasons, gave him plenty of chances, and gave him a consequence for his failure to correct his behaviour.

As for the ragequitters over this, it's childish and unhelpful. As someone who's characters are heavily invested in the Southern Alliance, this definitely hurts them, and I resent the fact that this Perdanese exodus stemmed from an OOC tantrum over a Titan decision. Is this something that my characters' enemies caused? No, this is a knife in their back from characters who were supposedly their allies.

As for Unwin's suggestion for the Titan Tournament, that actually sounds pretty cool. I have no idea what the current Tournament mechanic is like though, as am somewhat still new to the game.

A specific island for every player to combat an unstoppable force of enemies would be cool, but again I definitely think it may be too tall of an order for the time being, especially with things still being worked out on the war islands.

[Indirik]

And remember people, things are not black and white. If a person does so much good, then if he slips, you help him up and teach him to not do bad, because of all the good he has done. Not call him cancer and toxic and what not.

So... how many chances and attempts do you think are appropriate? Two? Three? Four? How about 5?

You see, attempts were made. You're probably just not aware of most of them. For example:

1) A removal from positions, 30-day lockout from positions, 3-day account lock, and warning

2) A public warning

3) A private warning

4) A removal from position, 14-day lock out from position, and 3-day account lock

5) A privately sent "Final warning" ultimatum

Two through five all occurred over a period of 2 months. Each one was for a different violation of the social contract.

Eventually, you just have to cut and run.

I will be repurposing the Courthouse sub-forum later today, and turning it into a Titan's case archive. Selected case summaries and verdicts will be posted when deemed appropriate. A case summary of this particular case will be the first one posted.

[Mac Tir]

Interestingly in regards to the "Atanamir did such good things, surely they should not be overlooked" argument, there actually was a case in Taselak recently in which a noble refused to swear fealty to the elected Queen, but swore to follow the General, and actually did so and was rather loyal and active in following orders and contributing to the realm. Despite all of his "good deeds", his unwillingness to bow to the queen, and follow the rules led to him being banned from the realm.

That action was widely protested by the realm, but ultimately accepted as it was deemed that the judge and queen made their decision with the best interests of the realm at heart.

With Atanamir, it seems a very similar thing has happened. You have two choices:

Accept that the people who created the game, and are charged with moderating it know what they're doing and are acting with their game's best interests at heart, or

Go make your own game where you get to decide what does or does not happen.

Seriously, am I the only one here who treats this like a massive multiplayer version of D&D? I may not agree with some of the DM's decisions, but ultimately they are there to moderate what happens and keep the game from getting too static, and I trust them to do that. (although personally on that front I could stand to see a few more changes. Granted I also understand that stuff like that is far easier to implement on the pen and paper version than it is with thousands of lines of code)

Part of moderating a game means occasionally kicking out a player that is ruining the game for other people. Deal with it.

[Solari]

If tournaments were created as a means of combating the us vs. them mentality, perhaps it just needs to be beefed up a bit. Some ideas:

* Allow characters that can not participate still attend (already proposed i believe)
* Have hosting a tournament provide a production boost realm wide
    * boost is small but variable depending on how much is invested in the tournament
    * boost starts one week before the tournament and lasts until one week after
* Have an automated "Tournament of the Titans" every game year (turning of the seasons)
    * Tournament is located on a mysterious island
    * Characters from all islands can join
    * All characters can join
    * Prize money is high and comes from nowhere
* If a noble of a region participates in a tournament, that region gains a production boost while gone. If the noble does well, an additional production boost occurs after the tournament. This bonus boost lasts longer if you placed better.

Just some thoughts!

[Blue Star]

Naysayers...

Did those last multis Alex report turn out to be multis? What of the other multis he reported? Might as well report everyone to cleanse the game once in awhile... remember that guy from OI mm.

Dobby you speak highly of yourself... didn't Calgius die once you left or was it headed that way? Also, you said you left because the punishment on Alex was not severe enough? no you left prior to his punishment review Court house.



Counts rising in Perdan... btw

[Anaris]

Did those last multis Alex report turn out to be multis? What of the other multis he reported?

He reported a large number of people, not as multicheaters, but as a suspected OOC clan.

Some of them turned out to be multicheaters.

However, this does not justify any of his behaviour. Once he had reported them, rather than simply awaiting the Titans' decision—or even nudging me on IRC or through forum PMs from time to time, as many others are known to do—he filed three more Titan reports, coming close to saying, "You should lock all these people because I know they are guilty, never mind about your investigations."

In the end, we caught the multicheaters because of an improvement to our multicheater detection tools, not because Alexandros reported them.

Might as well report everyone to cleanse the game once in awhile... remember that guy from OI mm.

Do you listen to yourself? Yes, obviously, if the Titans investigated every single player in the game, we'd find that some of them were multicheaters. But that's hardly a justification for just reporting everyone. If the Titans had the time and resources to investigate every single player in the game on a regular basis, do you think we'd need people to report suspected multicheaters for us to catch them?

[Menethil]

Naysayers...

Did those last multis Alex report turn out to be multis? What of the other multis he reported? Might as well report everyone to cleanse the game once in awhile... remember that guy from OI mm.

Dobby you speak highly of yourself... didn't Calgius die once you left or was it headed that way? Also, you said you left because the punishment on Alex was not severe enough? no you left prior to his punishment review Court house.



Counts rising in Perdan... btw

I am not the discussion here that ended a year ago.  There is no point bringing it up.  I left because of Atanamir I decided not to come back at that time because of the magistrate decision on a very light punishment in my opinion.  At the time I left Caligus was fine and Sirion were going to come help.  What happened after I left had nothing to do with me.

[Indirik]

Did those last multis Alex report turn out to be multis?

Some yes, some no. Which only goes to show that if you shoot at enough things with a shotgun, you're bound to hit something eventually. And probably a lot of things that were better off not getting hit.

What of the other multis he reported?

Same story.

Are you trying to imply that so long as someone often reports large numbers of accounts as suspected cheaters, whether they are or not, with proof without, that we have to allow him to continue to abuse, insult, and harass anyone they desire?

Counts rising in Perdan... btw

Unfortunate, but that is their choice.

[Miriam Ics]

I can understand that some players can be disappointed with the Titans decision and that they will left because they don't trust the game anymore.
In fact, this was your reason to leave, wasn't Menethil? (I am glad to see you here).
But think a bit if this is a really good reason.
Try to take out all the emotion off the table and see whats left.

I thought on leaving at the time Jason left, but I had the time (and good sense) to think more about what happen and at the end I could understand why the decision of the punishment for Alex was taken and even not really happy with it, I accepted it.

Those players leaving, seems to do not want to accept a decision that was taken and this, for me, is unacceptable. This sounds like emotional blackmail for me (not sure the expression is right, I've used google to find it).
Two of them are known for constantly pausing chars, D'Este and Kalkandelen. Erdogan had even deleted his account after Asena died so I am not sure they count.

Märt, Blue Star, Evi and all others that are Alex friends. Think a bit more before leaving. Try to see all what happen from the other side and try to see that Alex had more than enough chances and I bet he still will have one more, to come back with a new account if he tries.
I know I will be very sad and disappointed if you all leave too.

One more thing. I think that one reason that makes BM awesome is that you can actually improve it because you can be heard, and you can suggest improvements but this doesn't mean that if you don't agree with something it will be changed.
This can be one reason why some people left. Just thinking about it now while I am writing.