(long post) :( GOA response to the petition in support of TT and Black Falcon members

[Kinetix]

Nice post Shark,

Altho i understand GOA´s point of view i think they were a little too harsh on TT and BF.

 

[Chosen]

It is right that GoA set down regulations that are not subject to change. Otherwise, the game would be in sheer anarchy, since everyone could have a claim on what the spirit of the game is and they could report or act depending on that.

Exactly, there are always two or more parts in a case, thats why I don't want GOA to interfere, and instead let it be up too every single player what the spirit of the game is. We all got different views om subjects, and mostly none of the sides are 100% correct.

I'm not sure about everyone else here, but I HATE being told what's right or not when it comes to stuff like this, and thats exactly what GOA is doing. Instead of pissing a big part of the population off by doing what they did, they could've done something else! Like not bein able to downgrade a keep, if a relic is being held there, and don't ban people just because they are following what they believe is the spirit of the game.

 

[dub]

hmm say we arranged a relic take , more than a throng of mids finest warriors head for enemy shore , the battle rages and with some luck and persistency we emerge victorious with the prize , a relic.

now to further demoralize gloat and taunt our enemies we decide to lower the defences at the keep where the relic was placed , the humiliation burns , and then ...

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Firstly I can't think of any situation where such an act wouldn't be against the spirit of the game. Obviously there are additional complications since the cluster with guilds that may be active on more than one realm to take into consideration. While that wasn't the case in this instance, it's a small part of why we felt that there should be a clear message from us regarding this situation.
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goa made the wrong call , claiming to be able to judge intent in a rpg is silly

 

[Kagato]

Never thought i'd see the day when i'd actually be applauding GOA's actions.

Well done goa, both with the bans, actions and responses :worthy:

 

[charmangle]

I personally learned a lot here. My intention was never to help one side win over the other as some tried to accuse me of doing. It was to subject some of the key perceptions that where evident in the debates here to some productive scrutiny.

Hmm...I find the answeres given by GoA very nondescript of the reality of their responses. Also I really dont get an answere to what I felt most concerning in these instances.

They claim that they have a ruleset that regulates how we are to play the game. But in what they call the grey areas, they choose to ban people as a way of clearing things up for the rest of the community.

I would like to get a more specified answere as to what they consider grief play based on previous events, at which time they apparently didnt consider it greif play or against the spirit of the game. Dropping a taken relic infront of an enemy realm...is that not working against your own realm? (No one has gotten banned for it, so are we to consider that working for the realm?)

Lowering any other keep but the relic keep to lvl 1 is that not considered working against the realm? (AoDs action last summer to remove Irvr which they found boring, but most of the realm found fun). No action here neither, so that has to be okay then or? Or just releasing a relic keep at any time, is that considered against the rules (BF members just released it). Is it okay to release any keep at any time? etc etc

They said that they didnt want to open that specific "can of worms", when speaking of deciding if a AC raid is greif play or not, but they choose to do it in the case of releasing a keep. It sounds hollow to me...

Also I would have liked to know how they can find it fair to ban people for an offence they themselves acknowledge is hard to see is against the rules (grey area), instead of just clearly go out on the webpage and state that it is against the rules. I just dont see how they can find punishing someone for something that is their own fault (not making it clear in the ruleset) before just clarifying the rule instead.

In short the answeres were inconclusive and not satisfactory...

/Charmangle

ps. GoA has put their entire customer base at a position where it is impossible for them to know if they are playing by the rules or breaking them atm, and that makes us leave and kills the game faster than necessary!:/ ds.

 

[Andrilyn]

I'm not sure about everyone else here, but I HATE being told what's right or not when it comes to stuff like this, and thats exactly what GOA is doing. Instead of pissing a big part of the population off by doing what they did, they could've done something else! Like not bein able to downgrade a keep, if a relic is being held there, and don't ban people just because they are following what they believe is the spirit of the game.

Yeah and I'm sure you remember the barrels that GOA added that didn't cause one bit of problem with Mythic..
As for your other statement that you don't like to be told what's right and what's wrong is kinda laughable, picture you being into someone's house you have to obey his rules and if you don't he'll kick you out no matter how much you are against the rules you still need to obey them same with GOA and their server access.

GOA clearly stated what's against the spirit of the game and if you can't follow those rules and the other ones in that little box that pops up every single time you load the game then don't play it, really easy imo but rocket science for some people it seems.

Lowering any other keep but the relic keep to lvl 1 is that not considered working against the realm? (AoDs action last summer to remove Irvr which they found boring, but most of the realm found fun). No action here neither, so that has to be okay then or? Or just releasing a relic keep at any time, is that considered against the rules (BF members just released it). Is it okay to release any keep at any time? etc etc

Because it didn't get reported and this did, But even if I or other people from AoD at that time would be banned for that I for one would not have cried 45+ pages on FH for a 5 day ban.
It's like stealing something from the store and you got away but your friend got arrested, is that fair? no but that's life.

 

[Asha]

yes that's totally what it's like.

what a GREAT analogy.

 

[RS|Phil]

If they'd just released the keep, or set to level 1, and defended it not saying anything to other Albs or at least being civil I doubt very much GOA would have done anything.

As it stands, they got arsey with their fellow realm mates which not only gave GOA an excuse, it gave them a reason to step in. Pretty much sums it up to me.

If you need further clarity

Play your realm and if you can't bring yourself to support your side against the enemy then at the very least don't hinder them. That's pretty much it.

Seems simple enough to me! Whilst lowering the keep to Level 1 could be construed as hindering, it's more likely to be construed as roleplaying - as in, giving the enemy a chance and creating some fun. Again, I'd put more money on TT being arsey and forcing GOA to act than anything.

This is just an afterthought but I can't give much credit to the petition either to be honest. 250+ people? Okay, but how many just signed up because they're jumping on the I-want-GOA-to-die bandwagon? A LOT, I'd say. I bet if you could check there's even some folks signing it more than once as well, just to be supercool.

 

[Starwind]

Too much organising on the RVR front going on outside of the game for my liking, and things being planned to go against the grain of the game flow, i dont think the game was intended to go like that.

However i think this is a catch 22, as from the look of it, its a action taken against bad game balence. ( taking the law into ones own hands )

The 1 hour realm timer was a good thing, here is why:

Its 1 in the morning and a person on Midgard is bored, so he looks at the war map and see's ( Suprise Suprise ) Albion have a foot hold in a realm, so he thinks well im bored here , so i will log my Albion alt and see's whats going on over there.

A person on Hib also takes this aproach because Albion have a foot hold like they normally do and he is bored on his own.

So taking that there could be more than just this bored, and log on to Alb, what you get is alot of bored people running around in early hours bored doing what some would call AC raids.

All within the COC etc etc.

From what i can recall, as soon as the 1 hour timer thing was taken off, Albion went nuts taking everything, which in time lead up to this incident.

If you ask me the realm timer needs to go back on, even if its for somthing like 30 mins.

 

[Nate]

Thanks for following this up Sharkith, it's nice to find out a little more about this grey area..I think bringing up these events of dropping off relics at enemies footstep in your talks with GOA would have made a bolder statement about why it all happened this way. When the relics were dropped off, were the players involved banned?

 

[Dr_Evil]

Too much organising on the RVR front going on outside of the game for my liking, and things being planned to go against the grain of the game flow, i dont think the game was intended to go like that.

However i think this is a catch 22, as from the look of it, its a action taken against bad game balence. ( taking the law into ones own hands )

The 1 hour realm timer was a good thing, here is why:

Its 1 in the morning and a person on Midgard is bored, so he looks at the war map and see's ( Suprise Suprise ) Albion have a foot hold in a realm, so he thinks well im bored here , so i will log my Albion alt and see's whats going on over there.

A person on Hib also takes this aproach because Albion have a foot hold like they normally do and he is bored on his own.

So taking that there could be more than just this bored, and log on to Alb, what you get is alot of bored people running around in early hours bored doing what some would call AC raids.

All within the COC etc etc.

From what i can recall, as soon as the 1 hour timer thing was taken off, Albion went nuts taking everything, which in time lead up to this incident.

If you ask me the realm timer needs to go back on, even if its for somthing like 30 mins.

Food for thought.

 

[Sharkith]

OK Sharkith, this is much more constructive and I applaud you for pursuing it this way which is always how this should have been done rather than by damaging the game experience further as your previous action seemed to encourage.
I have to ask though as I note you seem pretty neutral in your posts in this thread, have you changed your mind on this? Do you still disagree with the action that Goa took? It is possible to agree with TT and agree with Goa so it's not an exclusive choice.


My irony-o-meter just went off the scale.

I think you have a very odd notion of communication Cretien.

First of all I went after this by forming the petition because I knew a sizeable chunk of people were deeply upset by the decision. That helped me make the claims I am making. Not constructive but necessary in order to make the bigger point. It was dissappointing that I felt I had to do it like that - don't forget I had almost left this part of FH - I am in the process of leaving it now once this thread dies out.

I fundamentally disagree with GOA but I understand their decision and I fully understand their interpretation of SoTG now. I did not before.

Alot of words but no real answers - Even though i respect your effort in this Sharkith i cannot help but think this is all a waste of time. Trying to cummunicate with GoA is pretty much impossible, and i for one is simple not gonna renew my accounts, at least that is a simple and quite understood action by all sides.

Actually this has achieved a lot. I did not set out to persuade GOA to agree with me or accept my views I set out to get them to clarify what they meant and why. That has been achieved.

GOA's actions where actually uncharacteristically 'English' (lol thats maybe why Jupi hates it so much ) and not 'French' (as some have said to me privately). This is because they responded in a utilitarin way i.e. they were forced to act for the greater good. Sadly even though a big chunk of players fundamentally disagreed with them they had to make this choice. Now you have to understand that dynamic before getting into this and beating yourself up. I knew this would happen and it is why I went after clarity rather than trying to win an argument.

I remain firmly convinced they were wrong to do this and that other ways could have been found. I remain convinced that their interpretation is constraining more constraining than they are willing to admit and in some ways they delude themselves. As I said to them though I was not going to grind my axe at the start of this thread and I am certain I have remained true to that goal.

So Chretien bear in mind that I did not debate with them to convince them I am right. I did it to understand them better. I understand them and I remain with TT.



Next step is to take it up with Mythic I did tell GOA that this would be the case and they are interested in the response I get if any.

 

[GrivneKelmorian]

In the past relics were DROPPED OFF for Albs by Hibs and then returned because a few players didn't like it that way. Keeps have been dropped, put at lvl 1 and so on to enable irvr. It's a joke. They bowed to these whining babies and now they are grasping at reasons why this is different.

I agree on this point actually.

How come there was no bans back in OF when there were a relic raid done by hibs then relics given to the albs outside apk in odins, screenshots ect posted on FH..

I personally think thats the big flaw in the whole thing.
Other then that, pretty clear answers from GoA.

But for this case, there should've been an exception to their rules. Since its obvious more than half of the eu cluster player base is against AC raids this late in the game, especially when so few players are left.(You hear and see more players leave because of these kind of events, in the end there is nothing left to fight, or enjoy.)

Agree to this aswell. But take in consideration, and ill try not to sound ironic, but the majority of the server dosnt mind AC raids.. atleast thats what it seems like. (read: those albs who only play alb is the majority of the server)

 

[Gahn]

Goa definition of SoTG = inconsistent.
How the hell u can take actions and ban people for actions that (they said it emselves) fall under a grey area? A grey area by definition ain't nor right nor wrong.
Happened in the past that we Hibs dropped a Relic in front of APK, nothing done or even a minimum fuss raised by em.
Happened that AoD dropped Crim to Level 1, nothing happens.
Then all of a sudden all this shit. Some1 wake me from this nightmare tbh.

 

[AngelHeal]

first of all:

PROPER ENGLISH HURTS MY EYES!!

2nd:

it's good to be playing with tt on avalon

3rd:

2bad goa is also on avalon

 

[rampant]

Happened that AoD dropped Crim to Level 1, nothing happens.

just want to point out to people - AOD's actions were resolved through communicating with their gm's - and lead to them releasing the keep after plenty of whine (started by me )

 

[Gahn]

Happened that AoD dropped Crim to Level 1, nothing happens.

just want to point out to people - AOD's actions were resolved through communicating with their gm's - and lead to them releasing the keep after plenty of whine (started by me )

Took how long? 5 days if i remember well. That's beside the point also, if it's against the SoTG, it is, be it 1 minute, 1 hour, 1 day or 1 month -.-

 

[scorge]

I asked GoA the exact same thing. I was concerned that if i were to make a mass rvr event on mid or alb and went for i.e. hib it was seen as being against the SOTG because i were to "harm" my "own" realm. They were pretty clear on that subject aswell, "as long as you are playing for the realm you are logged onto, you arent doing anything wrong".

What if i dropped a relic keep to level 1 so that the hibs/mids could try and retake it, thus drawing them from there home territory.

While the hibs/mids were preoccupied with the keep take, the albs raided hib/mid land to cut off the keep porting and trap them in alb land for rp's.

or albs decided that they would rather have a power relic then strength relic, so they downgraded the keep to make it easy to be retaken while they went for the power relic.

What i am getting at is How will GOA know what my strategic plan could be for the keep being down graded, maybe in the long term it would be more beneficial to me if i let a relic go.

"interest of the realm" is very subjective, my interests from the realm could be differant from GOa's, who is right? GOA because they "own" the servers or me as i play them?

The reason TT and got a ban is that GOA in the right mind cannot ban someone for taking a relic at unsociable hours, as taking relics is part of the game and its a 24/7 game. They had to slap someone on the wrist, and there only choice was TT.

Maybe GOA should concentrait on getting more people on the cluster, if that was the case the AC raid might not have happened and we would not be discussing this now.

Goa and marketing dont go together though....

 

[swifteagle]

I think GoA have been pretty lenient over the years with their decisions if you push them too far they might decide to clamp down and enforce more rules which some wouldnt like.

For instance how many people could and should have been banned for bug abusing over the LoS issues even after they were told not to and reaped 100,000s even millions of RPs unfairly ?

How many people could have been banned for cross realming in the proper sense of the word by discussing and setting up 2 realm relic raids or as was the case early on in the game an agreement not to attack each others relics in the case of mid and hib.

As for those asking for individuals in game to decide what the sotg is that would lead to total anarchy as what you think is fair someone else might think is unfair you'd end up with half the server being reported at some point for breaking the sotg

If people within the game decided the rules we'd have been overrun by radar abusers and cheats a long time ago because in their view its all fair as long as you win,you need the people running the game to decide these things as they are more objective and less likely to fly off the handle and decide something in the heat of the moment and while still angry

You may not agree with some of GoAs choices but in the end its their game and their rules if you dont like those rules you have a choice to make but most can and do play within those rules everyday.

 

[GrivneKelmorian]

Happened in the past that we Hibs dropped a Relic in front of APK, nothing done or even a minimum fuss raised by em.
Happened that AoD dropped Crim to Level 1, nothing happens.
Then all of a sudden all this shit. Some1 wake me from this nightmare tbh.

i know its just a fairytale, but when things like this happens one cant help but think that the developers/operators of the servers do favor one realm when it comes to benefits.

but as been said´many times before, its nothing but fairytales and rumours and suspisions that cant be proved.

and i also know that im not alone in getting this thought

 

[chretien]

Happened that AoD dropped Crim to Level 1, nothing happens.

Took how long? 5 days if i remember well. That's beside the point also, if it's against the SoTG, it is, be it 1 minute, 1 hour, 1 day or 1 month -.-

Did Crim have a relic in it?

 

[Cromcruaich]

Ive learnt my life is too short for long responses arguing the toss about goa.

Basically, they completely went overboard on the ban, for that they should of apologised and posted up their position for future reference. And additionally given BF and TT banned people a few week in recognition.

Shark in a way has done them a big PR favour that they couldnt engineer themselves, by giving them the ideas to think through their flimsy justification for their contradictory actions.

I will continue with the Avalon project, but when that ends i'll cancel my subscriptions and I will not be going anywhere near WAR, unless they make some ammends and show some bollocks and apologise to the people at the sharp end.

 

[old.Whoodoo]

This one is going to be beaten around for a while I think, but heres what I think, take it or leave it.

The "spirit of the game" should be decided by the people of the realms, a democracy if you will. In the realms of "Role playing", which this game is, I would have liked GOA to make an official announcement around the realm concerned ie Albion, that at XX o'clock, an official hearing would be declared by the King for the crime of Treason to the Realm, and he calls upon eight people of good standing (GMs) to make their way to Camelot.

The eight would be invited into a private session with the kings chamberlain (played by a GOA rep), who would present the evidence. Also in the room should be the accused, silent.

Afterthe charges are read, the eight could discuss the options, banning, public hanging (more roleplay!) or set free without charge.

The outcome would then be made public, for all to see before it happens.

I dont think this would take much effort tbh, and would mean RP, customer involvement and the main thing the decision being made by the players.

Just an idea, but I think matters concerning the realms should be handled by its people, and have a little fun to boot.

Comments?

 

[Sharkith]

Shark in a way has done them a big PR favour that they couldnt engineer themselves, by giving them the ideas to think through their flimsy justification for their contradictory actions.

I was acutely aware that I did not want to become GOA's mouthpiece. That is why I demonstrated that I clearly objected to their interpretation of the SoTG. I am aware however that by clarifying things I am kind of helping them. I hope though that you can see that by making things clear it kind of helps everyone.

This is precisely what I see as the SoTG:

The "spirit of the game" should be decided by the people of the realms, a democracy if you will. In the realms of "Role playing", which this game is, I would have liked GOA to make an official announcement around the realm concerned ie Albion, that at XX o'clock, an official hearing would be declared by the King for the crime of Treason to the Realm, and he calls upon eight people of good standing (GMs) to make their way to Camelot.

The eight would be invited into a private session with the kings chamberlain (played by a GOA rep), who would present the evidence. Also in the room should be the accused, silent.

Afterthe charges are read, the eight could discuss the options, banning, public hanging (more roleplay!) or set free without charge.

The outcome would then be made public, for all to see before it happens.

I dont think this would take much effort tbh, and would mean RP, customer involvement and the main thing the decision being made by the players.

Just an idea, but I think matters concerning the realms should be handled by its people, and have a little fun to boot.

Comments?

Precisely my point. Players should decide and players should organise it. So long as there is no in game abuse it should be fine. GOA do not agree however. Sadly old.Whoodoo your views and mine do not count for that much. Its counterstrike only with 3 realms.

 

[Darzil]

Precisely my point. Players should decide and players should organise it. So long as there is no in game abuse it should be fine. GOA do not agree however. Sadly old.Whoodoo your views and mine do not count for that much. Its counterstrike only with 3 realms.

I'm not sure I agree with you there. If the keep had been released, there wouldn't have been an issue, as any other guild could have taken it up. Look how quickly Hib was reclaimed after guilds released keeps there. It was setting it to 1, and not releasing it that was the issue. Had it been simply released, and most guilds refused to claim it, on the grounds that they considered the relic unfairly taken, I'm not sure there would be the same issue.

Releasing it says "TT (in that case) don't want to support an 'unfairly taken' relic, and if others do, they can support it themselves". Setting it to one says "TT (in that case) don't want to support and 'unfairly taken' relic and don't care what others think".

Whilst I don't think GOA was right in the ban, I don't think that releasing it would have resulted in a ban.

The main challenge of a 'round table meeting' to discuss stuff is that of who 8 people who represent the realm would be. I know that there are different circles of people within the game, I'd not ever heard of some of the guilds in Albion who have been involved in these threads, despite running ML raids, and having been around long enough to ding Elder.

Darzil

 

[Asha]

This one is going to be beaten around for a while I think, but heres what I think, take it or leave it.

The "spirit of the game" should be decided by the people of the realms, a democracy if you will. In the realms of "Role playing", which this game is, I would have liked GOA to make an official announcement around the realm concerned ie Albion, that at XX o'clock, an official hearing would be declared by the King for the crime of Treason to the Realm, and he calls upon eight people of good standing (GMs) to make their way to Camelot.

The eight would be invited into a private session with the kings chamberlain (played by a GOA rep), who would present the evidence. Also in the room should be the accused, silent.

Afterthe charges are read, the eight could discuss the options, banning, public hanging (more roleplay!) or set free without charge.

The outcome would then be made public, for all to see before it happens.

I dont think this would take much effort tbh, and would mean RP, customer involvement and the main thing the decision being made by the players.

Just an idea, but I think matters concerning the realms should be handled by its people, and have a little fun to boot.

Comments?

I'll take a 5 day ban first

I can see it now...

 

[Matriarch|Sneakers]

Good post Shark

Read it all and I do very much understand GoA's point of view. Though I strongly disagree with them and think they are binding themselves too much to the "general" rules, sometimes common sense and smoothness is the better way.



I think DAoC is flawed in many many many ways, wich the designers of the game should have picked up on long ago, this is of course not GoAs responsibility but Mythics.

The quote where GoA states that the game hosts many platstyles is not entierly true, anyone with abit of sense would see that the move from OF to NF changed alot of things when it comes to how the game "supports" playstyles.

Nowadays DAoC is a game with a too large frontier ( always been since NF ) that lacks natural travel routes where people are "forced" to meet up in a stage by stage manner. As in, 'the further you travel the higher chance or risc is that you will encounter a massive enemy force', and therfore you can by chosing how far you travel fit your playstyle accordingly.
Now this is not the case anymore, the "zergers" reside near docks and main keeps, and we all know "people bring people" and the spiral spins, draining all the other parts of the NF parts.
You see desperate efforts of the smaller groups or fixed 8 man teams who take towers in remote areas to try and bring some of the action at the "zerg areas" towards them, but as I said before the game no longer supports such a playstyle, and one/a few random reason beeing that towers can be razed, trebs break towers and the game is now by design made out so that nummbers>tactical advantage and experiance.
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Now I see or interperate Mythics new expansion LoTM to be an effort, a weak one may I add, to try and implement these natural travel points. Now you travel from your Main keep/dock area into the center of agramon and on the way there you will encounter enemies in diffrent nummbers depending on how far you travel. This is as I see it a positive step, but it is too late and it is not as effective as it could have been.

/P.s, would like to say that the above illustrated scenarios are the reason(s) to why we now have this deeply infected discussion; and seeing GoA act on it in this manner by merly reading the CoC word by word without any consideration of the context and the unique enviromental situation, is a misstake.

 

[Gahn]

Did Crim have a relic in it?

And then? It's an action against your realm anyway.
Which i fully supported be aware also.

 

[Matriarch|Sneakers]

I'm not sure I agree with you there. If the keep had been released, there wouldn't have been an issue, as any other guild could have taken it up. Look how quickly Hib was reclaimed after guilds released keeps there. It was setting it to 1, and not releasing it that was the issue. Had it been simply released, and most guilds refused to claim it, on the grounds that they considered the relic unfairly taken, I'm not sure there would be the same issue.

This would probably be very correct. But as many of us see it atm, GoA took two bad elements of "grief" play and said one of them was okey. Thats why a few of is is abit grumpy.

 

[Fatload BoysDoCry]

That was the beauty of UO, the players did decide what was going to happen next.