theworldofdreams.com

Laephis said:

We try to keep the boards as open to free speech as possible, regardless of how stupid or inaccurate the particular post is. This usually works out OK under the principle of "giving the person enough rope to hang themselves."


I agree whole-heartedly - It is threads like this one where it becomes very evident what a person's "true colors" are.

Not that my opinion counts for much, But here is my two cents worth (just on the Azzo issue). I have definitely not agreed with Azzo on many issues. And I have downright hated some of the things that I personally have seen. However, Azzo is a WoD'ian through and through. I have seen him bend over backwards (not pretty) to help others in need. I have no doubt in my mind that he truly cares about the shard and the people in it. WW, IMHO, this was a completely unwarranted attack based upon your personal feelings about Azzo. This thread is about the player that was banned. Period. There is no double standard (which I believe you are trying to say is happening) because Azzo has not broken any of the rules(to my knowledge. and none have been brought up here either). Just because you don't like him does not mean that he is "obnoxious in playstyle".

~Tristan Gryphon~


*let the Druidy things begin*

hehe

*edited several times 'cause I am too 'tupid to figure out the "quotes" thingy*

hehe

Tristan Gryphon wrote:I agree whole-heartedly - It is threads like this one where it becomes very evident what a person's "true colors" are.

I like brown and green especially. Reminds me of forests and meadows. I also think I was an elf in another life.

And I have downright hated some of the things that I personally have seen.

Ooooh, tell us! I haven't heard much dirt on Azzo.

*let the Druidy things begin*

Alcathacsar raises his head and peers out at the brilliant morning through half-lidded, bloodshot eyes. A pure beam of golden light lances through the window, illuminating his room with soft radiance. Alcathacsar groans and squeezes his eyes shut in misery.

It had been a long night at the ElfsOut Tavern and Alcathacsar had lost count of the mugs of dwarf spirits he had consumed as he had pursued the lovely barmaid. He must have not been successful because he was still fully clothed and alone.

He knew that his mentor, Gormanicus the master Druid, would be very unhappy with him right now if he knew what condition he was in. But, by the hoary beard of Ents, he was entitled to a little downtime now and then wasn't he? The rigid study and disciplines he underwent as a Druid apprentice were too much for mortal men.
...
..
.
Um, sorry, that just slipped out when I read "let the Druidy things begin..." Let's just pretend I never wrote that...

In fact, I probably didn't. I bet Azzo hacked my forum account...yeah..

I am probably gonna get Beaten Brutaly for this but, Oh well What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger right? First and foremost Azzo is just a Squirley kinda guy in my oppinon, I have never seen him be rude or make an outright attempt at being rude to someone on any occasion. Second, Eventhough Our wonderful admins attempt to keep the freedom of speech thing open here on these forums I must say, What kind of thing does this Show others looking into joining this shard? In my humble oppinon I think some things are better left Unseen by the public. Call Me a communist, but what possible good can come from new members and old alike seeing this sorta thread? Not to mention future WoDians. I for one will Miss Lyll because all the times we were in contact with one another he was very pleasent and nice to me. I do not condone nor justify the bannable offense that Lyll did. I just wish that Instead of firing up at anyone who posts something of this nature. Maybe we could just ignore it because after all, is it not just an attempt at Attention getting? Just some thoughts....
Now Let the burning Aran At the stake party begin.

*tosses a box of matches from hand to hand*

Hello Aran!

I knew it would be you! *atempts to run away*

So much anger, so much defiance!

*damn that rap music*

hehe

Why! Oh Why! Oh the Humanity! Nooooo.... Goodbye cruel world *melts into a pool of nothingness*

Roderick wrote:I could list off as many "oldbies" (most of whom still play here today) who have been jailed, had chars deleted or have been reprimanded for breaking the rules of WoD.

yes, my being banned outright is very unusual

Heck I myself spent a three day stint in jail back in the days of Dundee and Shade for.. of all things exploiting. I wasn't a brand new player when it happened. I had posted about the exploit but it was misunderstood and basically dismissed on the forums. So I accepted that and started using it as a tactic in the Shabooli fort. I spent 3 days in jail before finally getting the point across that it was a misunderstanding. I've also been spoken to occasionally regarding this or that, and have reported uncounted bugs to the administration over the years, contributed scripts, suggested new ideas and generally joined in the WoD community. Does that earn me any special treatment? No. Should it? No.

You were pardoned and went on to become a member of staff.
If that is what normal treatment is then what I recieved is abuse.

A great many people on WoD have made mistakes both old and new, and the vast majority of them learn from their mistakes and go on to enjoy all that WoD has to offer. Of those few (which can be counted without the use of toes) that have been banned since the shard was founded. I believe all of them were given ample opportunity to mend their ways. They chose not to do so.

But you see I was not given any opportunity to mend my ways. It was never suggested I should change my ways. And why should staff object to me helping with the shard plugging holes anyway?

first off: will staff members cease posting under non-staff identities, assuming the false guise of impartialness.

Bayn wrote:In the MGG thread where this all came out, you said:
"I think this ban will be good for me. I have long felt that my creativity is being stifled when I spend my time with this shard. I plan to divert my UO addiction to new areas and may make my own shard. I don't know, but this is exciting."

So, what's up? Why bring this all up again? It is all over, Lyl, you need to let go of it and move on. Build your own shard, enjoy life.

I have been building my own shard and enjoying life actually. The only reason I bring it all up again is that I felt bad about leaving without telling everyone the truth of the matter and giving everyone a warning.

I'm not here for sympathy. I did not expect staff to unban me. The reason I explained my actions and proposed the unban idea is to demonstrate that the reason I was banned was not bugs.

I was banned without fair warning and the official reason was a harmless issue I had tried to bring up long ago and hardly an exploit in the first place. Moonglow GY is just an excuse to ban me.

I have given the staff a chance to acknowledge it as a misunderstanding, but the fact is they don't give a damn. They were abusing their position in the first place.

Now for the warning:
****PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT****
Do not overestimate the integrity of staff!
I once read that you cannot be banned for what you say in the forums, that people should be free to speak their minds here. That idealogy must have been retired with Arc and his preceding Admins. I naively believed in this enlightened policy but it is one Sebastian and Siobhan do not live up to.

And now for the truth:
The real reason I was banned is because Siobhan hates me.

Why does she hate me? I can't read her mind but I can speculate on possible reasons:

I posted my political and cultural views on the forums and she disagrees with them.

I reported her friend for in-game verbal abuse.

I encouraged other people to report Siobhan's friend's in-game verbal abuse against them. (Last I heard Siobhan blew them off)

I have been in heated arguments with her close friends in the forums.

She was jealous of the attention I recieved and took away from her.

I didn't brown nose her.

I saw what she is actually like.

She felt threatened by all the answers and help I gave in the forums, ideas I suggested and problems I helped fix.

She wanted to be the star again.


Why would I want to play on or help with WoD when it has become an elaborate ego trip for Siobhan and her cruel, lowlife clique. I feel sorry for them as they must have severe inferiority complexes to need to show off and bully as I have seen them do too often.

Well, look dude. Everyone is human and we all make mistakes from time to time. But the "truth" is, you were a pain sometimes. Maybe you couldn't see it, but you used to disect the scripts and point out flaws all the time. Which is good in a way, but maybe some of those were designed limitations and some were on the back burner because a complete revamp of, say, archery (just as one example) was in the works and it wasn't worth messing with in the meantime. But you forced stuff by making it public and pushing for changes, often bumping your posts up and saying: (praphrasing here) "Well Drocket? When are you gonna do something?" As if you had the right to demand changes.

Listen, you have a lot of energy and you are clearly quite bright. But I think you probably just overwhelmed a bunch of folks with all your suggestions... to the point where you became an annoyance, to be perfectly honest. I don't think anyone feared that you were stealing anyone's limelight, least of all Sio. When you started taking advantage of the scripts, even if you reported the problems with them, you were breaking the rules. Plain and simple. Enough instances of that and I think the staff were completely within their right to ban you for it. And whether you were a thorn in their side or not is not really the issue. I only brought it up because I don't think it helped your case--it just made it that much more likely you would get banned when you eventually did step over the line. But you did step over the line, and not even you deny it. You just seem to think that reporting the bugs (or exploit, or whatever) exempted you. It didn't and it doesn't. The rules are clear about that too. The fact that they didn't respond to some of your reporting (or that you didn't like the way they responded) doesn't change any of that.

Now, if it were me, I might have handled it a bit differently early on. I might have put you to work and kept you busy developing stuff. But it is tough to manage multiple, separate, parallel development efforts and I can't fault them for keeping things centralized. I know first hand how spegetiized code can become when multiple developers are working on the same files at the same time. I spent over a year debugging 2 million+ lines of such code, so I know it very well. And if you are half the coder that you seem to be, you should understand that too. Drocket does an amazing job with what time he can spare this shard and we are eternally grateful for all the bugs he has fixed and all the new stuff he keeps giving us. I know you remember a time when bugs were numerous and we all lived with frequent crashes (not ISP outages but actual shard crashes due to bugs), but he solved all that and we live with the fruits of his efforts every day now, blissfully unaware most of the time of the anguish and frustration we have been spared because of his ceaseless efforts.

You should have been more grateful and appreciative Lyl, but it really just seems to me that you think you are smarter than everyone else around you and you couldn't experience that appreciation for the staff, much less express it meaningfully. As I have said before, go turn that keen intellect and creativity to positive concerns of your own. There is nothing left for you here anymore. You spoiled it for yourself.

Goodbye and good luck in whatever you decide to do.


-Augur

Lyl wrote:But you see I was not given any opportunity to mend my ways. It was never suggested I should change my ways. And why should staff object to me helping with the shard plugging holes anyway?

For one thing it is not our place as players to "plug holes", that is an admin function. We can request/suggest changes we would like, but it is not our place to change things by exploiting holes in the scripts.

The comment about "Do not overestimate the integrity of staff!" is just a cheap shot by the way, of all the shards I've played on the staff here has been at the top of the list in terms of integrity.

Lyl wrote:I was banned without fair warning

Lyl wrote:I wasn't banned for this incident alone, but my affinity for bugs. Things like the trees on my roof, my green horses, my dragon in the shape of a frog, sneaking into t2a, not realizing the region spawner was broken when I was picking, and boosting the invasion spawners all contributed.

Anyway don't worry about it. I was already prepared for this to happen, and even expressed my desire for it long ago.

So, which is it, did you have no warning at all, or were you prepared for it to happen?

Lyl wrote:first off: will staff members cease posting under non-staff identities, assuming the false guise of impartialness.

Since you said this responding to my post, I am assuming it is aimed at me? Hey Lyl, I already told you that I was not a GM when you accused me of that in a PM. *shudder* Gimme a break, I hardly have time to play at all as it is. I also strongly doubt the WoD staff would GM someone who has only been around since last August.

I have been building my own shard and enjoying life actually.

That is good to hear.

The only reason I bring it all up again is that I felt bad about leaving without telling everyone the truth of the matter and giving everyone a warning.

That is bullcrap. You act like a spoiled child crying for attention.

I'm not here for sympathy.

Good, you'll receive little here.

The reason I explained my actions and proposed the unban idea is to demonstrate that the reason I was banned was not bugs.

Actually, that is quite accurate. It wasn't the bugs, it was your exploitation of them over a long period of time.

They were abusing their position in the first place.

I am detecting a high level of insecurity and paranoia.

Do not overestimate the integrity of staff!
I once read that you cannot be banned for what you say in the forums, that people should be free to speak their minds here. That idealogy must have been retired with Arc and his preceding Admins. I naively believed in this enlightened policy but it is one Sebastian and Siobhan do not live up to.

Uhoh, I am detecting a very high level of insecurity and paranoia.

And now for the truth:

The Truth is out there, somewhere. *drum roll*

The real reason I was banned is because Siobhan hates me.

AAHAHAHHAAAaaHAHAHAhahahaa.a...*gasp*...*choke*...*giggle*.... yer kiddin', right? Are you sure it is Siobhan that doesn't like you? Maybe it is Drocket or Laephis or Sebastian or Daeric or someone else.

Gee, you must be smokin' some really bad crack.

I suggest detox immediately and a spell in a rehab center with an intensive out patient program afterwards.

Why does she hate me? I can't read her mind but I can speculate on possible reasons:

Spare us, please. Your posts have degenerated from the formerly intelligent albeit occasionally irascible material into apparent paranoid ravings.

She wanted to be the star again.

Ahhh, here is the crux of the matter, eh? It is you who wanna be a star.

I am sorry your feelings were hurt in the past and I admit my current post won't help things but you need to get over it and let things go.

Take care, get well, and travel in the Light.

Remember what I said about enough rope?

I'd be content to leave it at that, but after reading such filth, it's hard for me to let it go unchecked.

"First of all," Bayn is not an admin here, so demanding that he post under his "real" identity only makes you look like a bigger fool.

Second of all, your libelous comments against Siobhan are the vilest thing I've seen posted in a long time. She is none of the things you posted. It shows how completely out of touch with reality you are if you think she was jealous of the attention you took away from her: she hardly ever posts to the boards, how could she even want attention in the first place.

It's funny how truth and lies are often so closely related. I think if you were really going to be truthful, you'd have admitted that you are the one who hates Siobhan, and you are the one who is jealous of her. You've pretty much shown the world that you wanted to run the show here, and when you were told you couldn't, you took matters into your own hands.

Oh, I guess I need a third and final point. I'll let you in on a little secret, just to round out your illusion of how things work around here. Arcanum was not the patron saint of "Free Speech on the Boards." He probably would have loved to delete your posts and ban you from the boards: you were one of the reasons he left.

Lyl, your comments about the staff just pushed my buttons. Having only played here a short while this stint, but having watched the shard develop and grow over the past 3-4 years, I can say that your remarks, and even the entire tone of this thread seem more and more like sour grapes.

Having GM'd and adminned on a few shards, I speak from experience when I say that your accusations, or ones like them are usually far from the truth. I played the game and adminned the game to have fun, and also expected others to have fun. Its a game. When people broke the rules, it always broke my heart to have to ban them, but no matter how much they begged and pleaded, it was their decision to violate the rules, and that is what caused them to get banned, not anything I did, or any of the other GM's. I can say that there were a few like yourself who protested that banning, making lots of accusations of partiality, hatred, and other emotions attached to the banning which were not true. As a GM, you cannot afford to let personal feelings come into the picture, as it would taint all of the dealings you had with the players, and that was something I and the rest of the staff would not allow.

This is a roundabout way of saying that I believe you are dead wrong about the staffs desision, and the reasons for it. I have not had to deal with the GMs much, but when I did, they were courteous and fair. I never dealt with you in-game, but judging from your posts here (which is all i CAN judge you by) you knowingly bent and broke the rules. Warnings or not withstanding, you have to admit that. Your dissections of the scripts is one reason I would never release the actual scripts I was using when I ran a shard, it made it too easy for people to twink everything to the max. I do appreciate Drocket's willingness to release the scripts though, and if I do find bugs which are exploitable, I would not expect to have them appreciate it if I posted those exploits to the boards, I would e-mail them in, and never discuss them in a public forum. That is part and parcel of being a contributor, rather than someone who is looking for the public attention and 'admiration' for their bug-finding prowess.

Double posted