All that swell stuff with Sonvar last night

[Ben]

Usually I don't post about people getting punished, because I believe they are the business of just the people involved...

but here we had a player who harassed somebody else and then, after getting in trouble about it, continued to harass both on the forums and in the game, spreading information, some of which was just incorrect, in order to make people dislike the person he had been harassing all along. So this is to set things straight about what that player said. I will also use the opportunity to give a little insight into how the Valornian Justice System works afterward to help everybody else.

The player in this particular situation was Sonvar. Basically he had set up another person by following that person around and kill stealing. I made a post about this sort of situation in the Game Rules thread, and this situation and Sonvar is exactly what I was referring to... so you can just read about it there. Its the last post as of the date of this here post.

So, to counteract the misinformation

A) Sonvar did definately harass people on-purpose, in an attempt to goad them into attacking him back so he could report them. His theory was that since kill-stealing isn't "against the rules", he could annoyingly do it as much as he wanted without getting in trouble in order to instigate the other side to retaliate against him... which he could then report as harassment of himself (which he did). As the new post in Game Rules explains, this is incorrect and silly. So the first piece of information that is false is that Sonvar didn't do anything. He did. I hope this further clarifies that kill stealing with the intent to harass is against the rules, even though accidental or incidental kill stealing is not. Its pretty easy to tell the difference looking at the game records. If you start purposefully kill stealing repeatedly while messaging, "Oh, gee, why are you mad? I'm just saving you from monsters," or "Why don't you go hunt somewhere else across the world where its safer for you?" you are clearly crossing into harassment, and to argue otherwise is foolhardy.

B) The second piece of misinformation spread by Sonvar is that the other party was not punished. The person who Sonvar goaded into attack him back WAS in fact punished for the way he/she reacted. If somebody harasses you, but then you choose to harass back instead of reporting it, you are breaking game rules. However, this other person, unlike Sonvar, apologized and just took the consequences in stride after I approached him/her, instead of whining and complaining to the entire universe. Just because a person chose to act maturely and didn't throw a big tantrum does not mean they weren't punished... it just means they handled it maturely and so it was quiet and you probably didn't hear about it.

Further on that... all the admins confront people for breaking game rules on a DAILY basis, but you rarely hear about it because most people react in a mature manner, listen to what we say, promise not to do it anymore, and then leave with a medium, minor, or no punishment depending on what they did. The people you hear about being treated "unfairly" are the ones who don't act appropriately even after being approached by one of the Admins. So its not that these people are being treated unfairly, its just that they have no ability to react in a mature manner and own up to what they did. You'd be surprised at the number of upstanding Valornian citizens who have been in jail at one time or another for something, but that the general populace has no knowledge of... because when they went to jail, we talked to them and they responded well and they were sent on their way without anybody knowing.

SO... the lesson for those of you out there is that if you are in a situation like this, just listen to what we admins tell you to do, agree to do it, and then follow our instructions, and you are likely to escape with just a warning or a slight wack on the wrist. If Sonvar had listened, apologized, and not freaked out, he probably would have lost a few hundred plat. Instead he is banned from the game. That is a big difference, and it had nothing to do with what he did BEFORE he got to jail.

Enough on lessons. I hope this clears up some rumors that Sonvar was spreading about the people he was harassing... I wouldn't want somebody who was banned for harassment and poor behavior to get the last word in during a juvenile temper tantrum... just doesn't seem right.

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One last things... if you DO ever get banned from the game, why don't you leave nicely? Seriously... do you want people to remember you by the stupid character names and curse words you say last minute, or by the great things you did as a player before your mistakes? Do you want to be, "that immature bafoon who went around ranting and raving and cursing before he was banned... looks like he probably deserved it," or "that great gal who always roleplayed well... too bad she got banned." One would think, for posterity's sake, you would go for choice B.

[Ben]

Oh, and if you do get banned or just don't care if you get banned, and you try to ruin another player's reputation on your way out the DG door, I WILL make a post like this about you, too. You don't get to put the last word in if you were actually annoying enough to get yourself banned.