Some would call it a hammer

[Pangaea]

I'm actually going to take this post seriously (not that I don't take things seriously) and give suggestions on how I think GM's should act based on my personal experience with moderating.

First off, this may sound a bit harsh, but the part where you said "If you post 'i agree' you will receive a forum warning'" I find just completely and utterly ridiculous. I understand that you're trying to reduce the spam on this thread and get productive criticism, but I feel like that's a bit harsh to be handing out warnings, i'd just simply delete unwanted and unneeded comments. That's just my opinion on what you said.

Now, to get into the real opinions. As for account sharing, I don't feel that should be something the GM's should waste their time on. (Not saying you shouldn't if something serious happens.) I'm sure 90% of the community here has let someone they trust, let it be a brother or sister, on their account for some odd reason. As a moderator stand point, I find that completely okay.
Now if they let someone on their account that they think they can trust and something happens, maybe another PWO player, and they scam them, then that's something I'd look into. It can be hard to figure out what actually happened if you open the book of freedom to account sharing and someone get scammed, etc. I'd say this should be something you guys look into and think about opening up, but if you do just make sure you are prepared for some bazaar accusations and a lot of looking into certain situations. For my opinion on this as a player, I say go for it, but from an experienced moderator, I'm leaning more towards a no on this.

Time to move on to botters, well actually.. who has time to talk about botters. LATER!!!! Botting is cheating, and cheating is unfair to everyone else in the game. I say keep doing what you are doing to botters.

As for scammers, that is a different story. I say, for evidence wise, screenshots are a MUST!!! Maybe you guys could add an option on the trade for certain things. Possibly a button that both parties need to click if daycaring a pokemon. I'm not sure if you guys could code that into a game, but I think it would greatly decline the amount of scams, now I'm not saying that daycaring is the only way to scam someone, there are plenty of ways.

I don't want to make this too lengthy to read so to sum this all off I'm moving onto hackers. Hackers are just a big no no. I say ban them permanently and do whatever you guys do to make sure they never come on here again. In my opinion, there is no mistake made when hacking, it takes effort and can not be done accidentally. Everyone (i hope) knows hacking is wrong, and if you do it you are well aware of what can happen.

 

[Tecknician]

Hey now, everyone else was bringing up the bad analogies first. Not my fault if I can easily discredit their logic.

 

[EcoWOLFrb]

Personally when it comes to returning pokemon based on logic I'd have to disagree. When you start applying logic to decisions like GMs transferring pokemon it becomes subjective, and there might be bias based on the GMs opinion of you as an individual which will sway his decision. I don't think this is a place for specific references to individual cases or personal matters to be brought up either. When it comes to SS'ing your lending or daycaring, if you choose not to take picture proof of the transaction, then you're putting your personal trust in that person and you're making a decision of your own. I'm not saying I'm not sympathetic to your case nemo, just that I'd rather see something like this happen once or twice a year compared to CW being spammed with botters trying to get their pokemon back off their banned accounts.

 

[Dragon16]

well i think things like Double clienting should be punishable, but not something that would require permanent banning. a temp ban seems suitable, and maybe checking to see if their are any signs of illegal programs on their account, permanent banning for double clienting does seem a bit too harsh.

when it comes to account sharing, it is something that the players themselves would have to take responsibility for. if anyone gives away their password or uses any illegal programs then they must accept all the responsibility. what if they are letting them play on their account to see if they like the game before downloading it?? but then again it all varies.

 

[Peace-Enforcer]

Hell no!!!
I say IP ban for all botters/hackers and perma acc ban for scamers.

If you get caught. You wont be let go to get caught again!

So my opinion is that you need to be stricter with such things and not more lenient

 

[Bluerise]

I love the way it is but in terms of other things that takes common knowledge to understand...especially for innocent by-standards like me in Sufyan case of Ban. View this topic. Please understand where I'm coming from. Learn to find other solutions then always depending on them screen shots....the topic explains it all...just have a read please. And don't give me that "you don't deserve special treatment". I propose a fair solution which makes sense, I would hope you see it the way I see it...IF I was GM I'd in fact be just like Brennan, if not worse. But for this part...I think a solution can be found.

http://forum.pokemon-world-online.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=30488

In the case you raise up, screenshots will remain necessary. I'm not suggesting we won't have another solution in place in the future, however for the time being - screenshots will remain required.

Botters = CYA. But I don;t understand why the individual player cannot be shown evidence only himself i think showing that player in PM is the fair way to go.

For security reasons, players will use knowledge as power.

Scammers = CYA. I'm not to sure on sentence here, temp-ban is for sure, but I personally would rather see them gone account ban (not IP ban).

Scammers are currently perm-banned (upgraded to an IP ban after scamming on several accounts).
Oddly enough I recall a case once where the person believed they deserved no less than an ipban...

Account - Sharing = Lol is there really a reason to ban here? Seems pointless to ban someone simply because someone gave them the account. I understand it prevents perhaps sellig your account, but that kind of thinking is over the top imo. When I go I wouldn't mind passing on my account. Player sharing account should be aware and take full responsiblity of the reporcutions of this.

...and that is the problem. Not all Players are willing to take full responsibility. Essentially we've made account sharing against the rules because it was an issue as when 'public', it's usually public as one person who was using the account decided to change the details hence forth the other person reports it as a hack which then goes onto wasting staff time. Sharing accounts is split between a temp/perm ban depending on everything else in mind. I think Eco has consider an different aspect to it.

Now random thought, what if the ability to ban someone doesn't exist. What would you do in place as an alternative punishment?

 

[Merse]

The only thing you could be slightly more liberal is account sharing. But only if it was by the sole intention of playing fairly, but maximizing the game time.
So if a player gives his acc to his/her brother to hunt, it should be allowed, but if he usues his brother to pass Pokemons form one acc to another, it should be bannable. Of course, if there is any evidence that he/she is botting, or breaks any other rule (including spamming or swearing on the chat) the "brother clause" shouldn't have an effect, as the player still would be responsible for what is happening on his account.
This would affect maybe two or three accounts that were banned and made an appeal during the last year, so it would affect a very small portion of the cases, but a portion where equity could be applied.

Otherwise,then the staff should be more strict, especially if they issue an IP ban.


EDIT: The rules should be pushed into the face of the players more directly though. Somehow they should be forced to read the rules, so they can't say they didn't know about those rules. They also should be translated to as many languages as possible, so they can't say "I don't speak English very well".
Maybe there should be a page during the registration with the rules. And warn them with huge red letters that if they doN't read them, they can't claim in a case of ban that they didn't know about them. Or something like that.

 

[pieoffury]

Now random thought, what if the ability to ban someone doesn't exist. What would you do in place as an alternative punishment?

Scammers = return the poke he got and let the other player KEEP the false IVed poke
Botters = take away all the botted pokes
Hackers = take away all the hacked pokes
Doubleclienters = rollback all the levels he gained and pokes he caught

 

[Merse]

Now random thought, what if the ability to ban someone doesn't exist. What would you do in place as an alternative punishment?

Scammers = Return the price of the scammed Poke, delete every moneyf from his accounf as a punishment.
Botters = Delete every caught Pokemon, keep only TS and his own starter if he still has it. If he has no TS nor his starter, Let him keep one random Pokemon.
Hackers = Delete all his possessions, let him keep only his starter, or if he doesn't have it any more, a random Poke (not one of the hacked ones)
Doubleclienters = Delete every possessions from his alts, delete any money and items he has on his main.

 

[Peace-Enforcer]

for Hackers and boters in my opinion anyithing other than perma ban in my opinion is far too lenient. But I still think it would be funny if u took all of hes pokes and money and give him lvl 1 rat and mby brand him by implementing Titles <Hacker>. Would love to see how do they get out of that when they have no money for pokeballs

 

[iHugo]

I agree with Soap Dovee (hehe), the only thing i think that may have a warning before a ban, is the share of account.
I mean, lets say u have like 2 accounts, and need to pass some pokes from one to another, i think that should be allowed to give ur pass for someone u trust for log one of that accounts.
Other thing i think that should be allowed, is u can log more than one acc, coz this way u may log both accs, without share ur pass.
Botters and hackers should not be allowed.

 

[Tendou]

Everything made by staff is reasonable, its people fault if they join anything without reading the rules. Botters/hackers will get banned and the proof for their changing is starting from 0 so they can proof to staff they won't do that anymore.

However i would like to see a kind of temporary ban for minor situations like account sharing and a perma ban after, lets say, 3/4 temporary ban.

Staff would also be able to poke us about pokemons obtained by cheating so we could be aware 'n far away from any issue made by such thing.

 

[EcoWOLFrb]

IF banning were not possible:
Scammers = Return all money and pokemon to the original owners, wipe the scammers account and put him in jail for 6 months
Botters = Wipe the account (and all alts) and put them in jail for 3 months
Hackers = Return all pokemon to victims, wipe account, disable trades permanently, put in jail for 6 months.
Doubleclienters = Allow, but if they do any harm or transfer illegally obtained pokemon wipe both accounts entirely. Tell them to "attempt at your own risk" (though I think it's possible allowing double clienting would help GMs identify botters and suspicious people more easily anyway)

Also, for Scammers, Botters, and hackers... just as staff have titles before their names, these villains should have things like: [Scammer] [Botter] [Hacker] or [Scam] [Bot] [Hack]. This would add a bit of humility, and discourage it. The name tags would carry on through to new accounts as well.

 

[PhantomsCV]

IF banning were not possible:
Scammers = Return all money and pokemon to the original owners, wipe the scammers account and put him in jail for 6 months
Botters = Wipe the account (and all alts) and put them in jail for 3 months
Hackers = Return all pokemon to victims, wipe account, disable trades permanently, put in jail for 6 months.
Doubleclienters = Allow, but if they do any harm or transfer illegally obtained pokemon wipe both accounts entirely. Tell them to "attempt at your own risk" (though I think it's possible allowing double clienting would help GMs identify botters and suspicious people more easily anyway)

Also, for Scammers, Botters, and hackers... just as staff have titles before their names, these villains should have things like: [Scammer] [Botter] [Hacker] or [Scam] [Bot] [Hack]. This would add a bit of humility, and discourage it. The name tags would carry on through to new accounts as well.

I'd be fine with all of this.

 

[BRGodEastwood]

Not that I care anymore, just that I was bugged to place my input here.

Less permanent banning, more temp banning and account wipes, so they keep their name but are "placed on probation". If you're found botting first offense, 30 day temp ban, and account wiped. then 60 and account wiped, then permanent/ip.

EDIT: its something i experimented with on people during my time as GM, and they seemed to agree to those terms most of the time. Not sure if they ever ended up being repeat offenders.

EDIT2: If they have more than one account, all accounts should be wiped.

 

[Cynical]

Right so... my stance on how I feel things are here.

So, while I see that there are people who constantly break the provided ruleset that is in place. I feel that these people break these rules for one main reason.

1) Simply put, laziness. I lot of people I have noticed in life have a problem dishing out any time to get something done and so would rather cheat and hack to get things done. Not to mention when some people are told not to do something, the temptation for some of these people just rises.

In my opinion, the people who feel they need to hack to get what they don't rightly deserve, do deserve a punishment. I however don't agree with an instant permanent ban.

Maybe 2 week ban's as a first warning, if the problem persist, a longer duration anywhere from a month to three depending on the case and a pokemon wipe.

In bigger cases where someone is being a problem to the community, inflating the community with shinys, etc... They should be banned and put as bis said, on a probationary period, which goes back to how i've seen it lately. account ban and being allowed to create a new account.

just to clarify:
Small cases would be minor botting (provided they are truthful and the proof the gm has points to a small amount of time) or flaming. Big cases would be excessive scamming and/or botting for hours at a time.

 

[EcoWOLFrb]

So just to clarify Finest, you don't believe that people who are caught botting (regardless of how long they've been getting away with it) should immediately have their illegally obtained pokemon removed from the game if they're not permanently banned? If this is the case, I'm wondering why you feel everyone should get a free pass with almost no drawbacks. I find it hard to believe that the majority of people would not see this as an open invitation to bot until they're first caught, then stop once they're warned. This would be the equivalent to a slap on the wrist IMO.

 

[Rafayel]

I believe the ban for botters and hackers should be the severest (somewhere along the lines of IP ban). Botters/hackers hurt the game the most, why give them a second chance?

I only question the rules behind multi-clienting. actually there is only one rule, you arent allowed it. Most people who play pwo for 1-2 years have at least 2 accounts. Generally one which they hunt on and one which has their battle poke and which they use to battle other players (pvp). Of course that means transferring pokemon between accounts, which would require the assistance of some trusted guild mate or friend (which i believe is risky and an inconvenience). At home i have my laptop and a desktop that everyone else uses. only i play PWO at home (i havent found another pwo player from my country in fact....), but whats stopping me from playing pwo on my lap and desktop at once (and claiming that my brother/sister/someone else also plays pwo) and taking advantage of such a situation? why not just make it legal?

the only problem would be botters/hackers finding it convenient to store their illegally obtained pokemon on accounts that dont bot/hack. its not like you can really farm two places at once by multi-clienting (say you would originally have spent 'T' amount of time at route 'x', if you were going to multi-client you would have to spend less time at route 'x' (meaning you now spend 'T-t' time at x) and that time you do not spend at route 'x', would be spent at route 'y' ('t' amount of time). this is assuming one does not use performance enhancing softwear.... you would still be able to identify a hackers alternate account if he is multi-clienting via the ip address, and as i stated above, i believe in ip bans for such an offence.

*by multi-clienting i mean having two (or more in some cases) clients of pwo open either on the same machine or 2 different machines. im sorry if i misunderstood its actual meaning, but this is how i interpreted it :-\

the other problem i have is with the way scams are handled. So lets say i got scammed in a trade. I agreed to trade pokemon A for pokemon B, but instead of getting pokemon A, i got some other pokemon (we can call it C if you want). Fortunately i took screenshot of ID's, and trade agreement, and trade box and all that. Unfortunately the scammer has already sold my pokemon (sold, meaning he traded my pokemon and got something else in return in the same trade). According to the current rules, even though i have all that is needed to retrieve my pokemon (which is my primary objective, punishment for the scammer is always second), due to his/her trading my pokemon away, you would be unable to retrieve my pokemon for me. Here i feel the system does not fulfill its objective :-\ the scammer may get banned as there is evidence, but in the end the scammed person walks away unhappy.

there is another possibility that could arise from both the above two situations. Say a player has 2 laptops. He decides to make 2 accounts and play pwo on both laptops. But, he only plays one account on one laptop (if he uses account P on laptop G, he will never login with account P on laptop H). In addition to that, he always use an IP proxy when playing on one laptop. So effectively, it looks like 2 different accounts, playing from 2 different regions (Even if you can identify the sort of proxy he is using, you will not be able to determine his original IP address and link it to the other account). So now lets say he successfully scams a lot of people using one account (the one using the IP proxy), and then SELLS those scammed pokemon to the other account, cheaply (not for like 1poke $, but cheap enough for him to make sufficient profit, without arousing too much suspicion. He may even sell some scammed pokemon extremely cheaply in the open market to random people, placing them under suspicion too). So the scammer gets banned eventually, but placing a link to the other account is difficult, and even if somehow that is done, the scammed pokemon could never be retrieved to the original owner because they were properly traded already.

just throwing these out there.... If i made some mistakes with the rules (like traded pokemon being possible to be retrieved) i apologize in advance :-[

 

[nemo55]

So much reading (dizzy)

But I have a idea hahaha. It is an alternative way of banning a player...instead, sending them to "PWO Jail"

Where there will be a very small map, something the size of Pallet Town OR the old Cinnabar. All these "botters"/Rule Breakers are placed in there to hunt for Rattatas and Raticates for a certain extent of time. Only way they earn there way back to the original game would consist of 100 hours of human hunting. No use of bot program. 8)

Also there would be NPCs registered to talk to once per day. These NPCs will explain the rules to the naughty players..

I believe it is better to have the same player account and record the history of a player rather then banishing them, they get to make new account and bot again? No, no, then were back to square one. The rule breakers should remain in shame and sent to this so called "PWO Jail" for the time being. When and if they come back. Staff would know to monitor their names and such...

That is all.

 

[Julio~]

@Rafayel - I think anyone deserves a new chance (via a new account) but if the player persists in the error then he/she should be IP banned as well.

@nemo55 - How would the GMs guarantee they are legit hunting? I think permanent banning their accounts is the best way to warn them to stop. When you have a big lost you earn conscience of your acts.