Twilight Temple Mod/GM Abuse Update?

daymond

@darky26
"I have many many questions"
I was personally involved in this issue (I think naming myself is allowed?) and maybe able to answer some of them for you.

"Everyone can stand together, why argue about a spot??"
Nobody in Knights has a strong issue with other guild's members standing wherever they want to stand. Nobody owns any area in PWI as their personal space (except maybe for their homestead?)

"The screenshots were before the video or after? Cause it can change a lot of things on what happened."
The screenshots were before the video.
I am the person speaking in the screenshots.

"Who was there on the notorious spot first?"
This is a little vague, so I guess I will give several answers.
Knights has been standing in that spot since before the other guild or the other guild's server even existed.

If you mean in this individual instance? You can see in the video that the person who was banned is not standing on or blocking anybody at all when he is teleported outside of the map area.

When the GM finally does unstealth, he doesn't message/contact him in anyway, just arbitrarily bans him repeatedly for standing in the mod's spot.

"A ban for an afk spot sounds a bit silly to me."
Yeah, it is

@arspaulina#4310
You are now my favorite mod.
Thank you for responding and moderating the situation and not pushing any particular narrative.​​

heerohex#3018

Im not impressed by either side of this argument.

You have both broken the TOS by actions that have been taken and post of Tickets and information. In both cases only information that makes the other side look bad has been shared. This could have been easily stopped in its tracks and prevented.

My advice would be to let the Support Team and GMs deal with this as per their/the policy. And as requested by the Support team. If it was then not dealt with to your satisfaction it could then be taken to the next tear.

I would not be surprised if some bans where handed out for this alone.

If I can help with Advise in any way feel free to PM me as well.

Thanks.

H.​​

darky26

@daymond: Thank you very much for your time, for the replies and info!

I think that afk spots, or all spots come to think about it, "belong" to everyone, or should I say, don't belong to anyone in particular. It makes me sad to see a problem caused because of a spot. I wish for the problem to be resolved!
and I agree with you, I guess homestead belongs to each user. I don't have one yet, so I tend to forget this.

About who was standing there first. I wasn't referring to the beginning of time, or PWI time, I was mostly referring to this incident. But you explained it to me, both cases and I thank you for that!
I'll give an example what I mean. I have some favorite afk spots in RoR. Sometimes when I go there, they are empty, other times other people are there. Both is totally ok! If it's empty I stay there, if other people are there, I move along. I don't believe that I have more rights to a spot than other people. We can all stay afk, there is place for everyone! \o/

He had to use a catshop item to move? That's not very nice. I assumed (don't know why I assumed that), that he could move if he'd like, maybe using a catshop item to go to Archo faster. If he didn't use it, he'd be always stuck there? Relogging, could it help? Or a psy summon maybe? These are totally unrelated questions, I realize that.

Thank you again for all the info!

As other players have stated, I'm open and I'd like to hear all sides of the story. I'm open to everyone's opinions, and I'm very grateful for them! That's why I don't wish for people investigating it to rush it, I'd like for them to take all the time they need and to examine all evidence and views.

daymond

@darky26
There was no way for him to leave the area without using a cash shop item.
He was teleported outside the boundaries of the map. You can not walk in any direction from there, and using town teleport doesn't work. ​​

lostfreedom

I have been silent on this until now. I am a knights member. Since the merge we have bent over backwards and forwards to accommodate their every request. I personally have chosen to not stand on the platform but below it in front of my other guild mates. This issue has a longer history than most in all other guilds and servers realize. The blatant use of power by both the GM and the player moderator was totally uncalled for as this was a dispute between guilds. IMO the moderator used "his influence" with being able to contact the GM's directly to escalate a matter that has been tried to be handled by the leaders of the factions but to no avail. Mainly due to the unreasonable requests and rants by the other faction leader. This would be no different of a situation if for example guild a declared war on guild b because they got beaten in tw or some of guild b members pk'd guild a's members and went crying about it. That type of situation by example a GM does NOT get involved with at all because it is part of the game. I am upset at the "censorship" of the forum on this matter. Yes I do realize that it is an ongoing investigation, however, IMO it is also healthy for others to be informed on the issue as well and to have a place to "hear" all sides on the matter while we wait on the powers that be to inform us of what actions have been taken. I personally have spent several thousand of dollars on this game and for now until we hear that action has been taken I will NOT be spending RL money in this game.

Unknown

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paralleogram

daymond wrote: »

You can see clearly in the video that the person who was banned is not standing on or blocking anybody at all when he is first teleported outside of the map area several times.
(Which by the way, is impossible to leave without expending a cash shop item, you can't even town teleport to get out. The GM was forcing him to use a expend his CS items in order to not be permanently stuck outside the map. If he didn't have access to those cash shop items he'd have been stuck there)

^^^ This. This is a clear cut case of abuse of power. The GM could have moved the player(s) in question literally anywhere in PWI (heaven, hell, primal, morai, TT)– yet they chose to move them to an area where you are unable to move and can only return to a regular map by using an item only available through (in)direct use of real money. I would expect them to get a refund for used telestones.

bastille30 wrote: »

That's why I just like to stick to facts.

In the evidence in place (and I am not just speaking figuratively, this is actual evidence and facts), here with PWI and in other regulatory agencies that oversee corporate conduct what we see is this.

1. We have screen shots of the Leader of a faction claiming to have rights over a specific spot of PWI and being upset that others are not taking heed to her warnings that no one else should stand close.

2. Screen shot of A Forum Moderator who is member of a faction who's leader doesn't like others standing to close to them and a conversation with another player in PWI about how upset he is that people are porting next to him and his friends. We also see the polite response of the other player who apologizes and acts in every way respectful in spite of the aggressors approach.

6. We also have on record the leader of the faction who claimed to own pwi real estate and had the no trespassing signs up stating that she'd have the GM come back. This allows us to infer the inappropriate collusion that has been implied since the beginning of this complaint.

7. We also have on record the attempts to report this behavior in forums thwarted by the same forum moderator member of the faction of which that leader runs.

In the US there are regulatory agencies to ensure that businesses who operate with impunity or otherwise inflict financial, emotional or other damage to the customers who in good faith invest in their operation are exposed, and if it applies also provide compensation of damages.

It is not unreasonable, in any forum to expect due process and an escalation path for grievances. Based on the evidence so far presented, that was not the case here.

PS: Based on the historical destiny of any posts regarding this subject that disagree with the forum moderator and the deletion of previous posts, be aware that this post is being recorded as filed

I'd also like to point out, in said screenshots the MOD in question stated that Lost City merged into Sanctuary server. Thus implying that the wants of Sanctuary players trump Lost City players. This person used their direct connections to GMs to prove that this is the case, thus leaving PWI open to further "Server" vs "Server" disputes.

dagoddominator wrote: »

@nbreaking

tl;dr: you assume we all believe that person's side 100%. we are not disputing whether or not his actions were annoying, 90% of the world chats are annoying and almost quite bannable yet i dont see the million-tele-using people being banned or hounded down.

simple as this, GM intervention and choosing sides over a dispute over afk spot was crazy. the idea that a GM can just relocate you to placate somebody else is the problem here. petty.... yes very. abusive.... yes very.

people are more concerned that this frivolous set of **** was given credence by the GM, and moreso that a known forum mod used his influence to get it done when any other instance would be ignored because its frivolous.

a healthy game requires a helathy environment and if the GMs can be manipulated to further one parties agenda in a pretty childish argument then this is going to just let everyone know that this game wont be managed fairly and those with the inside track can do what they want.... so why spend your money there if you will be randomly banned for offended a privileged party?

I would expect that PWI has set a very dangerous precedent and now have left themselves open to a flood of tickets over e-turf --- AFK spots, catshop locations, or can even be as petty as something like similar name spellings.

As others have said... there are more pressing things such as bug fixes, glitches, actual stuck chars that PWI could have put their resources on instead of wasting time over such a frivilous argument. Now even more time is going to be spent investigating wrongdoing on all parties involved -- the GM, MOD, and both guilds. Then there is the public relations cleanup that needs to be done.

Really a poor poor decision for MOD and GM to waste so much time and energy over turf so their pixels can be "seen".
​​

darky26

daymond wrote: »

@darky26
No, there was no way for him to leave the area without using a cash shop item.
He was teleported outside the boundaries of the map. You can not walk in any direction from there, and using town teleport doesn't work. You are completely stuck. The only way to move is by using a teleport stone fromt he cash shop. He was basically forced to spend $$$ or be stuck there forever.​​

That's not very nice. >.< Couldn't they move him to a place where he could move by himself? Not that I agree with the whole moving thing, but at least, why not move him to a place, where he can move freely? Not everyone has teleport stones, gold or event gold always available.

About the threads on topic getting closed,deleted, e.t.c. In a sense I understand the need to keep a low profile from the people investigating it. At the same time, they have to realize that this makes it suspicious a bit. I believe it's to keep things controlled and calm till the investigation is over. Let's have faith and patience. Taking time is actually a good thing,it means that they take it seriously and proceed with caution.

eirghan

Well since this is a very nice thread with very nice people expressing good opinions in a nice manner I will voice my opinion as well.

What I personally want an answer to is: Why is PWI wasting time on something so petty????

We have very little evidence and any evidence we do have could have been photo-shopped, edited, or otherwise exclude important details that could change the communities opinions. Do I believe that the person(s) who got banned deserved it? No, not really, but even that is debatable in some people's opinions. Is there room in what solid evidence we have that there COULD be another story? Absolutely.

However, where there is solid, undeniable, irrefutable proof of is: A PWE representative logged into game and wasted time and resources messing with two singular individual's characters by teleporting them around and out of the map... We can agree that teleporting people instead of having a conversation is a waste of time (not to mention a few other choice descriptive terms), Yes?

I am concerned for my (our) account safety as well. But moreso I am enraged that PWI chooses to spend it's limited resources in this way when there are countless other issues that we have begged, time and again to have handled that have fallen to the wayside or completely, utterly ignored. What happened to all of the fake bidding? What happened to the transposition glitching? What happened to the list of things that should have been fixed a long time ago but never was? It's still sitting there... neglected... While PWI Employees are messing around in game and involving themselves in faction drama or community members mental health issues. When they could instead be sending back their blanket "Well look into it" support response. And/or hopefully getting **** done.

Anyone can see that this is a very different situation than what we are used to. And I don't think it's far fetched to say that there absolutely is some sort of favouritism here in regards to how support handled reported situations. But what disgusts me even more is that I have come to EXPECT terrible service. I EXPECT my support tickets to go unanswered or receive a blanket response that makes no sense. I EXPECT to be told my concerns will be taken care of and then see the exact thing I reported happen again and again, day after day, not handled at ALL. Yet, even wasting no time helping myself or the community, PWE manages to waste time and resources on an AFK territory battle for one of their mods rather than fix **** that actually matters.

And that, my friends, is what is absolutely, undeniably deplorable.

As the saying goes "I expect nothing and I'm still let down"

paralleogram

darky26 wrote: »

About the threads on topic getting closed,deleted, e.t.c. In a sense I understand the need to keep a low profile from the people investigating it. At the same time, they have to realize that this makes it suspicious a bit.

Without some transparency issues like this leads to a huge speculation, and multiple topics being opened on Facebook groups, PWI skype groups, guild forums... and eventually you will see negative reviews on the BBB and Steam over this. Really not good in the long run. ​​

bloodedone87

superfedee wrote: »

i just read on some comments on youtube that gm [Redacted] banned an account and now he is wearing that account's items...
tell me if that's not provocatory or harrassment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

we need to send someone to PWE offices. who can?​​

It is more than harrassment... but if it happend. Right now there are only comments on youtube.
Now if you can get the person that was banned to talk and prove that this GM took his items it will change the story.

Also please edit your post and remove the name of the GM. I feel that you did named and shamed and this can give them the oportunity to close this thread too. And this is is something we do not want.


Ars: Went in and fixed it for ya'll!

paralleogram

@bloodedone87 you quoted the Gm's name.... you should edit your post too ​​

daymond

@bloodedone87
The video does show the GM wearing the other person's gear.
It is a separate incident though, we should stick to this one. ​​

dagoddominator

sorry this was a mis-click

arspaulina#4310

I dont believe naming yourself is depth-able (least in my eyes) and since there's already tons of content out on this it's not like no ones unaware of the parties involved aside from those who dont visit FB or the forums that often. But to keep in the spirit of consistency of rules, so long as you're not calling out particular names then I don't see an issue. If it does somehow gets moved/deleted again, it won't be by my hands XD

People will draw their own conclusions and my only job here is to make sure some semblance of order is adhered to. Because stamping on people's threads is just going to cause more to pop up or they will take their discussions elsewhere on other social media platforms that can be seen. Bit busy at the moment so will come around again to post/comment if warranted but yeah, once again guys, I'd rather not have to go in and edit posts for names. I want to keep your venues open but I don't want to have my hands tied.

bloodedone87

I believe that the MOD saying here that Lost City merged into Sanctuary he was refering to the fact that Sanctuary did not change the server adress while Lost City did that.
However the way he was saying it felt like he was implying that people from Sanctuary have more right than the people from Lost City.

dagoddominator

@superfedee nobody is going to protest you being banned because you refuse to conduct yourself like an adult, please stop naming gm's and stuff, everyone else is following the rules.

i did not notice the GM wearing the other person's items, if that is the case then that is yet another example of the abuse and lack of "official" action.... this looks more like vindictive harassment on the part of the GM.... proving the MOD had the clout to set a GM to torture them however he feels. that is a serious abuse of power but also a serious betrayal of trust.

i understand why the company's official forums set rules against naming and whatnot, we shouldnt be debating it as it is perfectly clear it makes life simpler for them. we have numerous non-official outlets where we can post and share information without restriction, use those and follow the rules here. if they are handling something they would rather keep internal, fine. but they cant stop people from sharing their experience and they cant stop people from having a reaction to those actions. that is why it is important to exercise tact when posting here, apply pressure with the volume and visibility of the outrage and they will have no choice but to respond (at some point.... hopefully soon)

i want to take some time out to be fair and say that i have had better than expected service on the last few tickets i've created (i dont make many tickets as i dont have much cause to do so). i find that the new wave of CS reps were well spoken and tried to resolve my problems fairly. please dont let this event color the entire CS team, some of those people work very hard and are not compensated equivalent to their effort for it, so let's just make sure we dont heap **** upon them that is not earned.

Unknown

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etheld

demansfairy wrote: »

@iamluckingfoco
Agree with this, I honestly thought it was the other faction who posted the video bc it seemed agianst those 2 knight members, not for them.

Also can a GM please mute these people on wc? Everytime I L9ok on game I just see them spam the same message over and over.

demansfairy, i am aware that u don't like the other faction so the best u can do is block all the members so u can't see them wcing.

etheld

iamluckingfoco wrote: »

You know, I watched the video that was posted about the GM "abuse" and what I saw was two annoying people. One chump, his chumpette wife and two giant bunnies, egging on the GM, especially by the chump who kept summoning his giant bunny on top of the GM over and over again. Seemed like he and his wife were both being annoying little twits acting like prepubescent juveniles, and said chump deserved the ban.

I've been playing MMOs for almost two decades and I've seen GMs ban people for far less. In my opinion, the guy being an annoyance deserved what he got.

Sure, you can stand wherever you want in the game, but the chump and his chumpette wife were far FAR from 'innocent' little angels they seem to claim to be.

iamluckingfoco

i watched the video too, and as per what i see in there, those 2 that u are calling annoying were there first then the GM appeared. still the issue is why those 2 pepole got banned were there are far more worse bullying and name calling wherein people sent complains but we never seen quite like an intervention such as what is seen in the video.

dragonkiller4ever

Video heavily edited leads to heavily biased opinions, inconclusive facts, and misinformation. This whole post is just pure hatred against the management of the game and attempts to spark hate against the game and/or GM team. If the player really cared about his account why wouldn't he listen to the GM, instead he defies the GM. Also about the argument that he couldn't have moved without spending money in the game..... Psychic summon is free. The player deserved to stay banned. The player is now unbanned and there is still hate being displayed in the form of wanting to have an employee fired from his job FOR DOING HIS JOB. This is personal, this isn't about the well being of the game or the community of it. This is toxic, this is hate.

darky26

dagoddominator wrote: »

i want to take some time out to be fair and say that i have had better than expected service on the last few tickets i've created (i dont make many tickets as i dont have much cause to do so). i find that the new wave of CS reps were well spoken and tried to resolve my problems fairly. please dont let this event color the entire CS team, some of those people work very hard and are not compensated equivalent to their effort for it, so let's just make sure we dont heap **** upon them that is not earned.

So far I had excellent support service in my tickets and issues! But it's not about this. I'm not taking a side. As a pwi player I'd like to know as much as I can, what happened. No one is perfect, I'm not perfect and I don't expect others to be. I have no complaints from support, I've posted that in several different threads.

I was not present at the incident, I'm not from that server. But I'd like to know what happened and I think this is something that could affect many players. I'm not accusing anyone, I just want to know what happened, others might feel the same.

bloodedone87

dragonkiller4ever wrote: »

Video heavily edited leads to heavily biased opinions, inconclusive facts, and misinformation. This whole post is just pure hatred against the management of the game and attempts to spark hate against the game and/or GM team. If the player really cared about his account why wouldn't he listen to the GM, instead he defies the GM. Also about the argument that he couldn't have moved without spending money in the game..... Psychic summon is free. The player deserved to stay banned. The player is now unbanned and there is still hate being displayed in the form of wanting to have an employee fired from his job FOR DOING HIS JOB. This is personal, this isn't about the well being of the game or the community of it. This is toxic, this is hate.

Prove that the video is heavily edited. Maybe it is, maybe it is not.

This is not against the game or against all PWI GM team. This is against a certain GM that have also been acused in the past for abuse of power.

What do you mean by : ,, why wouldnt he listen to the GM?,,
Listening to what? That he should move his toon cause he was standing on ,,someone else spot,,

Please come back when you grow up and can understand what are the things that we discuss here.

dragonkiller4ever

Please come back when you grow up and can understand what are the things that we discuss here.

You are telling me to grow up when you are clearly biased and making no sense? I have not seen evidence that said GM has been found guilty of anything before. It's easy to make accusations that you can't back up. How do we know the player wasn't harassing someone from said guild right before this happened? Also you can clearly see the video is edited and not showing some parts. You grow up kid.

dagoddominator

stop flaming please! you are going to derail the post.

i only mentioned what i did about the CS team because a few comments spread the perception that gms and CS are not doing their jobs well or trying to.... i just wanted to make sure it was acknowledged they are not overall doing a terrible job, just this specific set of ppl and we should keep it limited to that.

bloodedone87

dragonkiller4ever wrote: »

Please come back when you grow up and can understand what are the things that we discuss here.

You are telling me to grow up when you are clearly biased and making no sense? I have not seen evidence that said GM has been found guilty of anything before. It's easy to make accusations that you can't back up. How do we know the player wasn't harassing someone from said guild right before this happened? Also you can clearly see the video is edited and not showing some parts. You grow up kid.

How do we know that the player was harrasing someone?

jadasia

If anything should come from this it's clarity of what constitutes harassment. On LC harassment was perceived and dealt with much differently than apparently what it is perceived from players of old Sanctuary. I would consider luring the guards from north gate to a red named player standing in that spot to get them repeatedly killed in a safe zone as harassment. I would call putting mounts, pets, other catshops on top of a particular catshop in an attempt to prevent the latter from engaging in commerce as a form of harassment. They a deliberate action to cause grief against another or deprive them of playing the game. Standing in the same spot as another in a safe zone and/or putting a pet on top of an afk individual is not harassment. The characters are graphically merged and neither are preventing the other from doing anything.

The 2 players were being somewhat rude but what they were doing did not rise to the level of being banned. This is a clear overreach by the GM. No question.

I'm thrilled that the ban was overturned but I do not think that making any type of sanction or action against the GM or anyone else should be made public. That should be between the person and PWI staff to deal with privately. As stated what should be made public are guidelines for the disciplinary actions a GM must follow when dealing with a misbehaving player including but not limited to a discussion with the player to try to resolve the issue, some warnings for for the player (which includes the ToS issue the player is violating) pending sanctions for repeated behavior and finally the sanction itself. There was no communication between the GM and the players with this issue. The offended players in this case filed tickets but there was no indication that support ever contacted the 2 players before the GM intervened to investigate the issue or try to reach a resolution. Just GM popped up and engaged in what I consider harassing behavior towards the individuals s/he banned.

The other thing that must be made public is what constitutes harassment. Some real clarity is needed here, To me as I said harassment to engage in behavior which targets specific players in an attempt to drive them from playing the game or to cause grief based on race, age, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, sex and a couple others. And this includes real life threats or acts of violence or intimidation (which are all illegal in the US anyway).

Then there was this unintended consequence of the GM's actions:



What I see here are a number of factions which are actually hostile towards each other standing together in support of an in-game injustice. Nowhere to be found is the faction which lodged the original complaint. I don't have anything against the faction whose leader filed the complaints or the player-mod as I have no way to determine if they acted out because of a grudge or if they really felt that the offending faction was targeting them for harassment. I'm not going to judge that. IF they felt they had a legitimate complaint then they have every right to pursue it through support to get guidance and a peaceful resolution. But the image above is a result of a clear overreach by the GM to the detriment of faction which filed the complaint. If anything I feel that the GM caused the escalation and really hurt the faction which made the complaint doing what s/he did.

I really hope PWI takes this into consideration and develops clearer guidelines for how support and GMs address issues like this. There's a whole lot of innocent people in the displaced faction who are being hurt by this and I really can't blame the leader as she was tried to communicate with the leader of the other faction and when that communication broke down she and the player-mod took it to support. This is proper venue to deal with this.

I whole heartedly believe the real cause of the issue was the complete lack of communication between the GM and the players he banned. This was his/her opportunity to de-escalate the issues and offer a resolution. And having an in-game GM standing there with all parties involved engaging in a conversation would have been a real blessing for everyone. It would have shown us that there is real support for us in-game. Unfortunately in this case it was an opportunity lost.

keihan007#7641

jadasia wrote: »

I whole heartedly believe the real cause of the issue was the complete lack of communication between the GM and the players he banned. This was his/her opportunity to de-escalate the issues and offer a resolution. And having an in-game GM standing there with all parties involved engaging in a conversation would have been a real blessing for everyone. It would have shown us that there is real support for us in-game. Unfortunately in this case it was an opportunity lost.

How could this issue be resolved with communication? Yes, most issues can be resolved but this time there was clearly one party, which was being absolutely ridiculous. The idea of reserved afk spots is ludicrous, no amount of mending the issue will fix it if and when the demands of one party are unreasonable.

shimarra

Am I mistaken or is this the same GM which there were complaints of him participating in TW as well? At which domino made a statement that he is in a faction but not participating in PVP events? Seems to me the problem is systemic.

eirghan

Well said @jadasia