Update 7 Oct 2017

[Steve the Black]

Now that you've mentioned backbiting comments on our permanent records, I am deeply curious about what horrible notes I've accumulated over the years. Nothing good, I am sure.

[Ghraark]

Was there an intentional bump in login bonus with this patch or was the 37000 xp I got a bug?

[neongrey]

Ugh, no, we're looking into it. Looks like I missed you, but please pray if you're affected by this and we'll get you straightened out.

[ninjadyne]

Thank you to everyone who reported the login xp bug, the issue is now resolved. If you have lingering issues with your character because of it, pray or let someone know on discord and we will see what we can do.

[neongrey]

Now that you've mentioned backbiting comments on our permanent records, I am deeply curious about what horrible notes I've accumulated over the years. Nothing good, I am sure.

I am a bit loathe to give this out, though I probably would do so for a private request. There's a few reasons that make me hesitate though.

Most accounts are perfectly mundane, documenting information that needs to be known across characters. There's occasional stuff that was mostly just pertinent to one character that gets tagged to the account, but nbd. Occasional contradiction of previous notes, etc. You know, ordinary administrative stuff. It's not all perfect, some of it gets kind of frustrated when it's documenting stuff like "oh my god please stop deleting your dudes" or "I know this person can rp better, I have seen it, roleplay better dude" but most of it isn't concerning.

The problem is that there absolutely are comments that are highly inappropriate, either administratively or just in terms of leaving shitty comments. It's a standing warning on staff that looking at your own account is a bad idea because it will angry up the blood. The current staff account with the best commentary is one who was simply studiously ignored for about ten, twelve years, and it goes downhill from there. Basically there was never any intention of this stuff being seen by anyone so it's unpleasant where it exists and I don't want to upset anyone.

Thing is, having shitty comments rarely correlates to low account points, unless you frequently were in the negative. In fact, the shitty comments seem far more to be a byproduct of "I don't like this person but can't justify depointing them"-- this is very nearly a verbatim transcription of a comment giving me a point from my own account.

The other thing is that we never got timestamps for this stuff until 2008 or 2009, because I asked for them. So there is frequently a lot more subtle stuff like people just being ignored for years but you could never tell based on the account.

Of course lack of commentary over time isn't inherently malfeasance; even with good coverage it's possible just not notice stuff. we have better tools for monitoring now but stuff can and does slip through the cracks.

So, you know, I probably wouldn't deny such a request but I am not eager to open the floodgates on this.

[slimicy]

Just wanted to give two big thumbs up for this update.

[Roadie]

I've seen the remarks on my account, trust me it has very little bearing with these folks.

[Anghwyr]

I have seen the remarks on my account as well. Most annoying part was that comments were added and account points were repeatedly removed without any feedback given to me as a player as to why. Makes it damn hard to learn and improve.

Things frowned upon, some understandable, some completely random.

- reusing the same name for lowbies (< lvl 20). That for higher levels there is a specific system in place that disallows the reuse of names, doesn't mean that it is ok to reuse those names prior to the time the system kicks in. (mechanism does not imply consent)

- answering "yes." to a mob that is waiting for a "yes", rather than using a multi-word sentence. (whatever?)

- not using any kind of roleplay when your playtime is at a time without players (It helps to realize that imms like to look back at the says/tells you do. If you don't realize that imms can do this, it feels rather useless to rp with a mob at times when everyone else is asleep. You might as well just think it, and not send the bits and bytes over the internet)

- using a different default "say", by using an alias (say, alias say esay hisses/ alias say esay rasps). (I still don't see the problem with having a different default "say" for your character. As far as I am concerned, this is just purely a random rule of a random god)

- voiding out and reconnecting to respawn an area without having to move out/into said area (metagaming)

- killing oneself repeatedly out of curiosity on how many deaths a particular race is allowed (metagaming. I got told to stop while doing this, and I stopped, but this was the only instance where I got any god feedback).

[neongrey]

You were depointed on two instances over a course of seventeen years; once because of a two-hour ordeal where you attempted a prog exploit repeatedly; when you attempted to reach out to other players for assistance with your situation you used the OOC channel and refused to roleplay with them, and eventually attempted further exploits in order to bypass an interaction puzzle.

The second was when for a period of at least a (real-life) year you were, in-character, using one-word prog triggers at every opportunity when needing to interact with progged mobiles.

This placed you at 2 account points; 4 points when the system was active was reserved for stellar roleplayers who actively reach out and improve the game world for all other players, through their roleplay. 4 point players were models for other players to look up to in their roleplay. When looking at high-point accounts, we had to ask ourselves questions like: "is this person engaging in behaviour that should be an example to others?" And what we observed was play that actively avoided roleplay even when given the opportunity (and on occasion necessity) to do so. Your account remained in good standing at an appropriate rating for the level of play which you had been playing.

You reached out on at least two separate occasions which were documented on your file and were given detailed information by separate staff members as to your account standing and points which you might take for improvement.

[Anghwyr]

You reached out on at least two separate occasions which were documented on your file and were given detailed information by separate staff members as to your account standing and points which you might take for improvement.

And here I am saying that it might be helpful when promoting/demoting people that the imms initiate that contact, rather than waiting until the player has figured out that something has happened to his account a few months later. Perhaps just write a short note to the character informing them why an increase/decrease.

I don't disagree with the number of account points I have now. No problem there.