I wanted to necro this on Sunday night, but the forums were down. Now I feel (kind of) bad. Obligatory apology for absence. Marching band + college + midterms = no time. I know I haven't been on in a while, and some of you might be thinking, "why is this idiot commenting on the rules? He hasn't been on and he doesn't know what he's talking about yadda yadda yadda". Oh well. You're entitled to your opinion and I'm entitled to mine. I can understand why we'd want to cut down on the amount of bans on people who frequent the server, but I believe there is a fine line between being friendly and being run over. I think we've blurred that line. Warning: I'm not trying to come off as a pissbag (although it probably seems like I am). I'm only trying to explain how I feel about these new rules.
TL;DR: I don't like the new rules. Too lenient; muddies water between being a friend and being staff; too much change, stick with what works.
If someone like pitt4ever (the first player who came to mind for some reason), who is a regular, left the server with a slay, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. He doesn't cause problems, he doesn't RDM a lot, he's an all-around good guy. There are countless players who deserve that benefit. But if some random plebeian comes on and RDMs and leaves, the likelihood that they want to come back after RDMing is slim, and they can wait a week. Of course there are exceptions, but for the most part, if someone leaves immediately after RDMing, their computer didn't crash. They just wanted to troll. Also, I and other Moderators, try to wait a couple of rounds before banning someone who just RDMs and leaves. Mass RDMers are banned instantly, but I do try to wait until the next map (or a couple rounds into the next map if the last round was going into a map change) to ban someone. How hard is that? Not hard at all. And why does the ban length arbitrarily jump from one day to a week? Why not one day to two days?
This ghosting change really rustles my jimmies. It honestly makes no sense to me. We've broken it up into two categories: moderate and severe. What constitutes moderate or severe ghosting? Moderate ghosting is this: "psay[ing a] message to another player on the server with game-related information" and severe ghosting is this: "Intentional/Malicious sharing of game-related information through voice or text chat." How are those not the same things? To further this confusion, when a Member or higher shares game-related information, it's severe, but when a Guest does the same thing, it's moderate? Can a new player not maliciously share information? Sure, the Member+ should know not to ghost, but if anything, that's more reason to be more lenient. The Member+ knows they screwed up, and shouldn't be punished as harshly, or inversely, because they screwed up, they should face harsher punishment. Also, someone could be playing on an alt account. So they'd have little time on their alt account, but hours upon hours on their main account. There are so many details that go into ghosting, that it needs to be handled on a case-by-case basis (like it has been since the beginning).
Kicking AFKs after an hour? How many times have we had to wait or message a staff member to kick the AFKs? Now imagine having to wait upwards of an hour to have a spot cleared up for you. Why clock someone sitting AFK for an hour? Maybe 30 minutes, but even that is too long. If the server is full and you're AFK for more than 5-10 minutes, you need to be kicked. If you know you're going to be AFK for more than 5-10 minutes, just leave. It's not that hard.
To conclude, I can't exactly format my somewhat outraged opinions correctly, but I hope you all get the point. These changes are pretty terrible. The only change that I can kind of get behind is the RDM and leave, and even that is a little light in my opinion. Ghosting is not cut and dry. You can't sort all offenses of ghosting into 2 categories. Each case is different. What's next? Are we going to divide cheating into two groups as well? It's silly. Permanetly ban them, and if they decide to appeal the ban, then talk about reducing it. I think we've tried too hard to be friendly, and all we've done is muck things up even more. It takes a host of skills, like common sense and good judgment, to be a (good) staff member, and I have no doubt that the majority of the staff members can handle such a task.
EDIT: MOTD says that AFKs will be kicked if the server is full, the original post didn't say that.
TL;DR: I don't like the new rules. Too lenient; muddies water between being a friend and being staff; too much change, stick with what works.
If someone like pitt4ever (the first player who came to mind for some reason), who is a regular, left the server with a slay, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. He doesn't cause problems, he doesn't RDM a lot, he's an all-around good guy. There are countless players who deserve that benefit. But if some random plebeian comes on and RDMs and leaves, the likelihood that they want to come back after RDMing is slim, and they can wait a week. Of course there are exceptions, but for the most part, if someone leaves immediately after RDMing, their computer didn't crash. They just wanted to troll. Also, I and other Moderators, try to wait a couple of rounds before banning someone who just RDMs and leaves. Mass RDMers are banned instantly, but I do try to wait until the next map (or a couple rounds into the next map if the last round was going into a map change) to ban someone. How hard is that? Not hard at all. And why does the ban length arbitrarily jump from one day to a week? Why not one day to two days?
This ghosting change really rustles my jimmies. It honestly makes no sense to me. We've broken it up into two categories: moderate and severe. What constitutes moderate or severe ghosting? Moderate ghosting is this: "psay[ing a] message to another player on the server with game-related information" and severe ghosting is this: "Intentional/Malicious sharing of game-related information through voice or text chat." How are those not the same things? To further this confusion, when a Member or higher shares game-related information, it's severe, but when a Guest does the same thing, it's moderate? Can a new player not maliciously share information? Sure, the Member+ should know not to ghost, but if anything, that's more reason to be more lenient. The Member+ knows they screwed up, and shouldn't be punished as harshly, or inversely, because they screwed up, they should face harsher punishment. Also, someone could be playing on an alt account. So they'd have little time on their alt account, but hours upon hours on their main account. There are so many details that go into ghosting, that it needs to be handled on a case-by-case basis (like it has been since the beginning).
Kicking AFKs after an hour? How many times have we had to wait or message a staff member to kick the AFKs? Now imagine having to wait upwards of an hour to have a spot cleared up for you. Why clock someone sitting AFK for an hour? Maybe 30 minutes, but even that is too long. If the server is full and you're AFK for more than 5-10 minutes, you need to be kicked. If you know you're going to be AFK for more than 5-10 minutes, just leave. It's not that hard.
To conclude, I can't exactly format my somewhat outraged opinions correctly, but I hope you all get the point. These changes are pretty terrible. The only change that I can kind of get behind is the RDM and leave, and even that is a little light in my opinion. Ghosting is not cut and dry. You can't sort all offenses of ghosting into 2 categories. Each case is different. What's next? Are we going to divide cheating into two groups as well? It's silly. Permanetly ban them, and if they decide to appeal the ban, then talk about reducing it. I think we've tried too hard to be friendly, and all we've done is muck things up even more. It takes a host of skills, like common sense and good judgment, to be a (good) staff member, and I have no doubt that the majority of the staff members can handle such a task.
EDIT: MOTD says that AFKs will be kicked if the server is full, the original post didn't say that.
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