Reintroductions and reflections.

[covenn]

Welcome back Az. I am glad that you want to make these changes as they are more than long over due. I sincerely hope that it is not too late for the game and the reputation of RoR.

I am not going to mention names, but I can say without shadow of a doubt that undue ego and power tripping by a couple of people were directly responsible for losing the 50+ players we were bringing and indirectly responsible for losing a couple of slightly smaller guilds that were following us here. To be clear, it had nothing to do with game imbalances, bugs, outages, or anything else along those lines as we fully recognized it comes with the territory of a project like this. It was simply due to the actions and behavior of a couple of people in 'management', so to speak, that seemed to have an issue with being civil regardless of how approached and seemed to lack the capability to treat others as fellow human beings or any human decency at all.

Your post represents hope for this game and this community. I just hope it works out for everyone involved even if for me personally and for my guild, the ship has sailed already.

[covenn]

What I do is closely follow any ban appeals and the related threads on the forum and I never had the feeling it was unjustified, especially as most perma bans had a long track record of previous infringements.

Yeah but what you actually see in the thread is only a small portion of what actually went on and generally was only related to perma bans. What about all the temporary bans for absolutely stupid reasons being handed out as well, you never see any of that on the forums and if someone complained about it there they would just get banned anyways heh.

The bigger issue with the game were the threats towards and general treatment of, players by a couple of people.... one person especially (the person I am thinking of is probably the same person you are ). A player base is not going to stick around if they feel suffocated or like they have to constantly walk on egg shells, which is EXACTLY what the environment here became. Toxic beyond belief and it was not the fault of the player base.

[Tesq]

I think, my own personal opinion, is that the problems can be described to two words.

Noblesse oblige

We are all guests of the server but without us there is no server.

Any way to see this is wrong and create problems if you speak of player base first or dev first this create only problem.

You love the game?
Wanna see it played and at his.max potential?
Wanna.see ppl enjoy the game with you because this also benefith the game?

The game is at the first place, not the dev nor the playerbase; anything that do wrong for the game should.be hit, it dosent matter who/what this is the most pratical approach and is what i belive lead the project in his first steps in t1.

This would creare a sense of "community" which is the sum of both dev and playerbase, this js also why :

Some ppl should.really stop flame in.this thread and try to forgive and go on, but

ALSO

From now on, some behaviour at least as i interpret it from dev side should have conseguences and anyone in charge with shoulders large enough should deal with em and even removing ppl from team if these behaviour keeep go on.

This is the most pratical approach the time to ask for some heads is not now but is neither never ....(ppl can forgive if is constructive but they cant be make joke off behind the scenes,, if some behaviour keep go on someone need to get ride of em ,the jokes/ bad behaviour , or the ppl doing em)

[saupreusse]

Spoiler:

I think, my own personal opinion, is that the problems can be described to two words.

Noblesse oblige

We are all guests of the server but without us there is no server.

Any way to see this is wrong and create problems if you spel of community first ord.dev first this creat only problem.

You love the game?
Wanna see it played and at his.max potential?
Wanna.see ppl enjoy the game.with yiu because this also benefith the game?

The..the game.is at the first place not the dev nor the player y; the game anything that do wrong for the game should.be hit dosent matter who,this is the most pratical.approach and.is.what i belive lead the project in his first steps in t1.

This would creare a sense "community", this js also why :

Some pplshould.really stop.flame.in.this thread and try to forgive and go on but

ALSO

From now on some behaviour at least as i read.it.from.dev side should.have conseguence and anyone in charge with shoulder large enough
Should del with em even removing.ppl

This is the.most pratical approach the time to ask.for some heads is not now but is neither never (ppl can forgive if is constructive.but they cant be make joke.off behind the shoulders , if some.behaviour keep.go some.need to get ride.of em or the ppl doing em)

Tesq I really like you, but I simply cant understand a word you are saying ^^ Cant you please proofread your posts and at least fix all those "." here and there to build some sentences that a normal human being can read?

[Grulo]

Sau, if i post here would it be considered ban evasion?

[saupreusse]

Sau, if i post here would it be considered ban evasion?

This thread kinda has its own rules, as long as its no shitposting im open for everything :^)

[Torgrimmerr]

Sau, I like ur hamster, so would my 20 cats, meow.

[Yaliskah]

A player base is not going to stick around if they feel suffocated or like they have to constantly walk on egg shells, which is EXACTLY what the environment here became. Toxic beyond belief and it was not the fault of the player base.

Excuse me. Have previously admitted many things with my poor frenglish. Reading this sentence hurts me a bit.

I understand this, please correct me if i'm wrong:
WE must pay a particular attention to the players feelings and angriness, and in the same time, WE must accept silently salt and everything ? Who are we? Servants? We are dedicating our lives for this project and for players in general... None here asks for a thank you. None here ask for glory or gratitude. But there is so much hate... ...really?

What about the thousand of players actually enjoying the game without a single warning ? They are nothing ? Don't we have any respect for them ? Are we torturing them and abusing our power ? Isn't it the playerbase too?

When it is about balance, everybody know whatever things done, whine and cries will come as if things were definitive. Many ppl are posting about, many ppl are discussing about, even in the team we are giving feedbacks and opinions, but as far i know, we don't punish anyone to have an opinion... unless i'm completely blind...

To dance a Tango, we must be 2. I'm never involved with bans or warnings -except once- (Hi Hao, come see me on discord say hello when you want), but i assume there is always a reason. And in the worst case, the faults are shared.

[Grulo]

I have been thinking how to say what i want to say for a few minutes and ended up deleting it constantly, so i will just be blunt.

RoR staff: We **** up. Regarding some bans, we let our personal enmity towards some players get in the way of proper moderation. No matter how much we disagree/hate someone, we should always remain professional and not lower ourselves to their level with insults and personal attacks. We also would sometimes react wrongly to a player simply because 1 or 2 posts ago some idiot made us mad; this is pretty obvious in threads like Patch/balance notes where people would be warned/banned for simply saying "I agree/disagree with X".

The balance forum was a lie. It was basically a place for the community to post whatever random suggestion they wanted and then feel "listened to" when it was moved to discussions, yet in the end we would end up seeing other changes that were never discussed in the first place. Things like "this will change depending... on my whims" became common and no one in the staff had the balls to stop it.

You know what needs to be fixed (and after thinking about it for a while, no, it doesn't involve firing anyone as long as certain people refrain from talking to the community again). You just need to do it; that is, assuming you want to keep your current players/bring back old players/bring new blood.

edit: i only touched the moderation/class balance parts because those were the only things i was involded on with staff (being ex GM/balance mod). I can't really say if we **** up in other departments, that's for other people to say.

Some (not all, of course) banned players: You **** up big time. Sorry, but most of your bans were deserved. If someone got banned after, idk, sending an emote, that's only because he had 10-20 previous actions that made him look like an ass in the team's eyes. In other words: You weren't banned for an emote/a troll post/etc; you were banned for being dicks acting like kids (when i am sure you are all adults) and treating other people as **** as well. Don't come now acting almighty with your "I was always right, told ya so" attitudes.

I feel like i needed to say this because it is clear this thread is aimed at current/potential RoR players (they are aware that us old players are not coming back) and i don't want a new player to think you were heroes. Trust me, you weren't and you really need to grow up.

[Martok]

A player base is not going to stick around if they feel suffocated or like they have to constantly walk on egg shells, which is EXACTLY what the environment here became. Toxic beyond belief and it was not the fault of the player base.

I understand this, please correct me if i'm wrong: WE must pay a particular attention to the players feelings and angriness, and in the same time, WE must accept silently salt and everything ? Who are we? Servants? We are dedicating our lives for this project and for players in general... None here asks for a thank you. None here ask for glory or gratitude. But there is so much hate... ...really?

What about the thousand of players actually enjoying the game without a single warning?

Given the prior notification the rules for this thread were a bit less restrictive, I am going to post an example of what I believe Covenn was referring to.

Recently, as in about just over two weeks ago, I posted this comment in a thread concerning Keep Lords, quote:

"The Lord dynamics have gone through a number of changes over time, and probably will again at some point. At the moment those dynamics seem to require about two warbands worth of people to overcome, one to fight the lord and one to fight the enemy."

Note in my comment I did not single any one out, I did not call anyone any names, I did not criticize any Dev in regard to the Keep Lord dynamics nor indeed did I actually criticize the Lord Dynamics. I simply offered my opinion in response to a question posed by another player. Yet here is the response I received from one of the primary Devs here:

"It requires one tank and a healer helping the tank to take the Lord out of the equation then you can kill the enemy and secure the area and kill the Lord. Left to his own devices he will wreck your healers up. Someone needs to control the Lord, It's not rocket science."

At that time I chose not to respond because I didn't want to wind up on the ash-heap of history. But even at that time I failed to understand why the need to insult both I and the author of the original post as dumb as bricks simply for asking a question and providing an answer. Because of course as a player here I could never have been involved in a keep take during which the opposition attempted to stop us and even if I had been I am far too stupid to have seen how that scenario played out and subsequently comment based upon that experience. No, better we all just shut up and/or go away.

That is exactly how I interpreted the response received, and as I stated a few post back, if a few recent events have triggered a desire for some to just lighten up a bit, I am all for that.

I am not saying anyone here should be the target of any verbal abuse or allow themselves to be the target of verbal abuse. I am saying that is a two-way street.